Apple One subscription bundle: Everything included and how to sign up now – CNET

Apple’s new service bundle Apple One is now available for Apple users, bringing together different combinations of subscriptions including Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, Apple News Plus, storage service iCloud and the new Apple Fitness Plus — which arrives Dec. 14 — under one price. The move, announced at Apple’s online event in September, follows Apple’s increased investment in services over the past three years. 

Here’s everything you need to know about Apple One, including costs, free trials, the different plans and services available. We’ll also let you know whether subscribing will save you any money. 

What is Apple One?

Apple One is a subscription service that bundles together Apple’s existing services, letting you pay one monthly price to get several services at once. It’s somewhat similar to Amazon’s Prime set of services. You don’t have to subscribe to Apple One to access these services — if the only one you’re interested in is, say, Apple TV Plus, you can just keep paying the $5 a month as usual for that alone.

Now playing:
Watch this:

Apple One pricing, tier breakdown

3:25

When is Apple One available? 

Now. At its September event, Apple executives said that Apple One would launch sometime this fall. But during the tech giant’s quarterly earnings report in October, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the bundle would go live on Oct. 30. On Tuesday the company announced that Fitness Plus would launch on Dec. 14. 

How much does Apple One cost? Is there a free trial? 

Apple One offers three different plans (see below), ranging in price from $15 a month to $30 a month. There is a 30-day free trial available.

Read more: Apple One: How to choose the best subscription plan to save you money

How do you sign up for Apple One? 

Sign up for Apple One on your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Apple TV. You have to be running iOS 14, iPadOS 14 or TVOS 14. Later this fall, you’ll be able to sign up on your Mac running MacOS Big Sur.

To sign up, go to Settings, tap on your Apple ID and then tap on Subscriptions. Tap Get Apple One, and choose which plan you’d like. If you sign up for an individual Apple service, Apple will automatically recommend whether an Apple One subscription is a better value, taking into account any other services you already pay for. 

What do the different Apple One plans include?

The three plans differ in terms of number of services, number of people who can access them, and amount of iCloud storage offered. Here’s how they break down (and you can read a full comparison of each Apple One plan here): 

• Individual plan: $15 (£15, AU$20) a month for four services for one person: Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade and iCloud (50 gigabytes of storage)
• Family plan: $20 (£20, AU$26) for four services for six family members: Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade and iCloud (200GB of storage)
• Premier plan: $30 (£30, AU$40) for six services for six family members: Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, iCloud (2 terabytes of storage), Apple News Plus and Apple Fitness Plus (in the 100 countries and regions where they are available) 

What do you get with each service?

Here’s what you get with each service available in the Apple One bundles, and how much they cost individually in the US.   

Apple Music: Apple’s music streaming service, its alternative to Spotify, includes 70 million songs from popular artists, ad-free. 

Standalone cost: $10 a month individual; $15 a month family.

Apple TV Plus: Apple’s movie and TV streaming service now has 30 original shows, including comedies, dramas, documentaries and talk shows.

Standalone cost: $5 a month.

Apple Arcade: Apple’s mobile gaming subscription service includes more than 130 games that you can play on the iPhone ($599 at Apple), iPad ($300 at Back Market), Mac, iPod Touch ($125 at Back Market) and Apple TV ($180 at Best Buy). 

Standalone cost: $5 a month.

iCloud storage: Apple’s cloud storage service automatically gives you 5 gigabytes of free storage, and lets you upgrade for more room for your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac or PC. 

Standalone cost: Free for up to 5GB, or $1 a month for 50GB, $3 a month for 200GB or $10 a month for 2TB. 

Apple News Plus: Apple’s news service lets you access articles from hundreds of magazines and newspapers. 

Standalone cost: $10 a month.

Apple Fitness Plus: Apple’s new fitness streaming service, launching Dec. 14, offers guided workouts built for the Apple Watch ($329 at Amazon), similar to Peloton Digital and Fitbit Premium. 

Standalone cost: $10 a month.

Would subscribing to Apple One save me any money? 

It depends on how many of the services above you already subscribe to, or would want to subscribe to. If you were going to subscribe to all of them individually, you’d be paying at least $40 a month, so even the Premier plan would be worth it. 

According to Apple, the Apple One Individual plan offers a savings of over $6 per month over standard monthly prices, while the Family plan offers a savings of over $8 per month, and the Premier plan offers a savings of over $25 per month, or up to $300 a year.

The service that may interest people the most is the least flashy: the iCloud photo and backup service. It’s already a popular service that is practically required for anyone who stores photos, videos or music downloads. If you’re already paying $10 a month for 2TB of iCloud storage, and also subscribe to, say, Apple Music, the Premier plan may be worth it to get you both of those and all of the rest.

Now playing:
Watch this:

Apple debuts Apple One subscription service

2:02