Apple Subscriptions Expand with Apple Fitness+, Apple One Bundles

Thanks for the link to the support article. If I’m reading it right it sounds like I’m wasting money as it’s included with Apple Music:

If you have an Apple Music membership, you get all of the benefits of iTunes Match, plus access to the entire Apple Music catalog.

Does Apple still even sell iTunes Match?

I switched to Spotify when Apple mangled the transition from iTunes to Apple Music.

My playlists were still there, but no content in any of them. The problem was compounded when I moved out of the country and left the server with my music library in storage. It might have worked had I been connected to the library on the transition. My guess is Apple never planned or tested for the situation of a missing library.

And to even get that far, I had to agree to a trial subscription of Apple Music.

In any case, someday I’ll retrieve my server. Who knows if it will still work after sitting so long. Or if the Apple Library format will still even work.

We spent $27.97 for Apple Music Family, iCloud 200GB, and News+ last month. Since we’ll probably keep TV+ once the trial ends, the Premier bundle will lower our monthly cost and deliver more services. Arcade and Fitness+ don’t really appeal but the 2TB iCloud tier would mean enough space to finally enable iCloud Photos.

Is this still the case? I went looking for discounted iTunes gift cards recently and discovered Apple has discontinued them. They’ve been supplanted by the Apple Gift Card which can now be used in the app stores and iTunes store. Since they can also be used towards hardware, I doubt we’ll be seeing discounted gift cards in the future.

I don’t know about the cards, but Apple occasionally has sales of 10-20% on adding money to your iTunes account. It’s not really a discount as you pay the full amount, but they give you extra credit. So a $100 spend gets you $110 or $120 in your account.

I watch for those sales and then use it for Apple Music, iCloud, and other regular spending and it’s a good savings.

(You can get to the “add money” screen via your Apple ID login [at the bottom of the iTunes app on iPhone, for instance] and tapping the “Add Money” option. )

Just to note you can use your store credit for subscriptions. So you can pick up those special offers and use them for the bundle.

Looks like the iTunes cards are gone - so 20% discount may be history - and if they offer $120 for $100 and you’re a subscriber - you should jump!

Apple TV+ is also offered in both monthly ($4.99) and yearly ($49.99) plans.

Here is my take on this. Apple Premier subscription will cost you at least $360 a year and a possibility of price increases since it is not a one time fixed price on subscribing. Any of the lower cost options adds $120 a year if you want fitness. So and individual subscription with fitness will run $300 a year with significantly less storage.The family plan with fitness will runs the same $360 as Premier if you add fitness but with much less storage.

So what Apple seems to be doing is using an old and proven marketing trick to get their customers to pay $360 a year if they wish to have fitness, the most valuable app, by pricing it such that the lower cost options offer little value and that only their highest priced offering makes economic sense. It is similar to the theater popcorn trick where the large size with free refills is only slightly more expensive than the medium and the ‘regular’ seems tiny by comparison. Not only that but with the limited battery life of the watch and the cost of replacing it, if it can be replaced, results in it being cost ineffective to replace it, meaning in order to continue using fitness you will need to purchase a new watch every few years, and your occasionally your Phone at Apple’s inflated prices.

Thanks but no thanks. I choose to wait a bit to see what their competition offers.

(We’ll gloss over the moribund $25.99-per-year [iTunes Match]

I Love iTunes Match, my get out of the house walkabouts, and 1’38" hour drives to visit my mother are so enjoyable with anuniquely personalized and eerily interesting random play: (Ghost Wrier/Mary Lou Lord -Octopus/Syd Barrett-fiesta en el solar/Marc Ribot y Los Cuanos Postivos-Strong Blood/Trixie Whitley-I’m Only Sleeping /The Vines-Something Beautiful/Sinead Oconnor-WIlbury Twist/Traveling WIlburys-Something’s Jumping in you /Lisa Marie and Malcoolm McLaren) As an artist, and producer I ask you to please support direct download releases from your favorite artists. Streaming services - even Apple Music -but others as well - do not compensate artists very well by streams. If you can go to the artist directly - that’s usually the most cost effective for the artist (lower service fees) especially in times when venues are difficult to open- like now- I really dislike subscription services as a way of life but iiTunes Match has always been one of the best Apple Products I’ve even used. .

My one question: Where does that leave the new Apple TV+ bundle. Apple recently announced a $9.99 bundle of Apple TV+, Showtime, and CBS All Access.

Is that still available through Apple One?

Oops! I didn’t think anyone was actually paying for Apple TV+ yet. :-)

I have been enjoying the AppleTV+ (free as I purchased a new iPhone last year). I love the quality of the productions and the easy access to all other streaming our family does. My current favorite is Ted Lasso: how to be a nice guy in an nasty world.

We are considering the Premier Bundle as my husband and I have individual accounts for the various services. It wold definitely save us some money. However, I am very interested in the Fitness+ service since my pilates studio has been closed for six months.

One concern we have is that we have both been using iTunes for years and I have iTunes Match. We do not want to lose what we already have. So, holding off until we get this figured out.

Thanks so much for the synopsis!

In theory, Apple says that Apple Music subsumes iTunes Match, but you might want to confirm that with Apple support before you subscribe to the Apple One Premier bundle.

iTunes Match has features missing from Apple Music. We were just reading what Apple Music gives you and it doesn’t allow for music tracks that are not on the Apple Store. Music Match does.

Or do I have that wrong?

I just tested this. I have ripped MP3 files (with SoundJam!) from a non-commercial music CD I bought from an Asian guy playing an unusual instrument under a bridge in Central Park while in NYC for Macworld Expo some year. It’s completely unknown to Apple Music.

I imported it into Music in Catalina using File > Import. Then I used File > Library > Update iCloud Music to update my library. The artist and album appeared on my iPad Pro running iPadOS 14. However, they have not yet appeared on my iPhone 11 Pro running iOS 14. My guess is that sync will happen at some point, but I don’t know how to force it in iOS.

I do have Sync Library enabled in Music on the Mac in Music > Preferences > General, and in Settings > Music in both iOS and iPadOS.

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I think the bundle is $9.99 for CBS All Access and Showtime, available to you if you’re an Apple TV+ subscriber.

Yeah, but will it also available with Apple One?

I guess we’ll find out when Apple One becomes available.

re. iTunes Match.

I use iTunes Match, as I don’t really need (have time for) the Apple Music catalogue. iTM should work exactly the same as AM though; if you’re importing your own non-iTunes items (CDs, items from other sources, etc.), then they get DRM-free versions available to re-download from Apple, compared to tracks you download/stream (that you never owned) from the AM catalogue that all remain DRM’d.

I’m still nervous about using AM though, as on its release, Apple managed to muck around and screw up huge numbers of people’s own DRM-free music (often in lossless ALAC, to boot!). Along with artwork and release notes being deleted or swapped for wrong ones – unforgivable if you have (read: had!) a large catalogue of items, and had to either fix these issues manually, or for some, simply couldn’t recover from the issue (see journo Jim Dalrymple).


re. Apple One, extras.

On a separate note, I believe Apple have intimated users can pay extra above even the top tier. So you can pay 30 for that, then supposedly another 10 for another 2TB more storage, and/or the TV bundle (ATV+, CBS, Showtime) likely to be another optional 5 on top.

But how this is going to all work exactly is unconfirmed – likely at least until they announce/release iPhone 12, as that’s when a huge number of people will have the free ATV+ run out, and are wondering if Apple offer another free year due to Covid, with Apple not being able to meet their own production/release schedule accordingly, thus the lack of expected content available in this first year.

Somehow, I don’t think another year of ATV+ is on the cards though, given they want to sell these bundles to impress shareholders that they’re taking services revenue to the next level. We’ll have to see.