Starting Oct. 30, you could begin signing up for the Apple One bundle of services. I did so with the idea of consolidating the individual services to which I subscribed (Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple News+, and Apple Arcade) into one package and setting up Family Sharing. But, to says the least, it’s not going as smoothly as I’d like.
But first some background: Apple’s Apple One bundle of services includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, iCloud, Apple News+ and Fitness+ at a discounted price. (One caveat: Fitness+ hasn’t yet launched, but is coming later this fall.)
An Individual plan (for, obviously, one person) is $14.95 per month. The Family and Premier plans can be shared between up to six family members. Here’s a breakdown of the plans:
° Family includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 200GB of iCloud storage for $19.95 per month, and can be shared among up to six family members.
° Premier, where available, includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, Apple Fitness+, and 2TB of iCloud storage for $29.95 per month, and can be shared among up to six family members.
I went with the Premiere package. After signing up, everything went smooth as butter on my personal Apple devices. It’s when I added my wife and daughter via Family Sharing that things went downhill.
On my wife’s devices, the Apple Music and Apple TV+ components of Apple One work just fine. However, Apple News+ seems “unaware” of the Apple One subscription keeps asking my wife to sign up for a trial subscription after which she’ll be charged a monthly fee. On my daughter’s devices, Apple News+ and Apple Music work just fine, but Apple TV+ doesn’t know it’s part of an Apple One subscription and keeps asking her to sign up for a trial subscription after which she’ll be charged a monthly fee.
I’ve tried signing out and signing in with the respective Apple IDs on our three accounts. I’ve removed my wife and daughter from Family Sharing and reinstated them. All to no avail.
Apple Support tells me that the problem is that the system is “confused” because I still had individual service subscriptions going when I signed up for Apple One. He told me there was nothing I could do, but that when my Apple One bundle came up for its monthly renewal (which will be Dec. 22), everything will reset and work as intended.
Personally, I’m skeptical, but we’ll see. Perhaps my situation is unique. If not, Apple needs to make sure that when folks subscribe to an Apple One plan it seamlessly consolidates current Apple Services subscriptions without any confusion and headaches.
After all, “it just works” is supposed to be the Apple way.
