Popular Apple Music service tier gets sudden price hike in the US, UK, and Canada
Apple has been trying hard for a fairly long time now to close the gap to Spotify in terms of subscribers at the top of the global music streaming ranks, but following two (semi) recent price changes, it doesn't look like that's going to happen in the very near future.
It was only around five months ago that the free Apple Music trial period went down from 90 to 30 days with little to no advance warning, and now the monthly cost of an undoubtedly popular service tier seems to have gone up without any sort of notice given to existing listeners.
Instead of $4.99, students in the US are looking at coughing up $5.99 a month starting with their next bill, and similar price increases appear to have come into effect in Canada and the UK as well at some point in the last few days.
While that may not sound very drastic, it does represent a fairly significant 20 percent price hike... coming from nowhere and making Spotify look even more appealing than usual. Although a $5.99 Apple Music student subscription still includes Apple TV+ access as well for a "limited time", Spotify also comes bundled with Hulu and Showtime at a lower rate for folks enrolled at accredited US colleges and universities.
Bottom line, it definitely feels like Apple is making a mistake here, but at least the $9.99 "standard" and $14.99 family plans are unchanged... for now.
These new US, Canadian, and British student changes, by the way, were clearly inspired by a discreet price increase across markets as diverse as Australia, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and South Africa last month, so it's probably a good idea to keep an eye on other regions for signs of additional hikes in the future.
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