Apple One has existed for over five years, and during that time its basic tiered structure hasn’t changed. But due to recent updates, and ones just around the corner, Apple is making its high-end ‘Premier’ tier harder to resist.
Basic offerings and structure of Apple One bundles
If you’re unfamiliar, Apple One is Apple’s subscription bundle consisting of various first-party services.
If you’re in the market for an Apple One bundle, there are three tiers to choose from:
- Individual: $19.95/month
- Family: $25.95/month
- Premier: $37.95/month
The first two tiers include iCloud+, Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade. The main difference between them is in the name: one is valid for a single person, while the other grants access to your whole family.
The high-end Premier plan, meanwhile, provides all the benefits of the Family plan plus three additions:
- Apple News+
- Apple Fitness+
- and a higher 2TB storage plan with iCloud+
Though this basic structure has stayed the same over time, Apple One Premier has recently become a lot more enticing.
Apple keeps making its Premier plan more compelling, largely thanks to News+
One of the biggest ways Apple One Premier has been made more compelling is through significant upgrades to Apple News+.
Over the last year or so, News+ has gotten better in three big ways:
Games: On the games front, Apple has been following The New York Times’ playbook. It’s made daily puzzles a reason to keep coming back to the News app. Joining the Crossword and Crossword Mini games that have been available for years, Apple added a third daily puzzle called Quartiles last spring, then daily Sudoku was introduced at the end of 2024.
News: For news, Apple struck a deal with NYT just over a year ago to bring Wirecutter and The Athletic to all News+ users. The addition of The Athletic, especially, added significant value to Apple’s news offerings and made News+ more of a no-brainer for anyone already paying for the sports publication separately.
Food: Most recently, Apple News+ debuted a brand new Food section in the iOS 18.4 beta that will launch to all users in early April. This Food hub brings together restaurant news and reviews, food lifestyle articles, and perhaps most importantly, recipes. Tens of thousands of recipes are available in a clean, elegant format and you can add favorites to your Recipe Catalog. There’s even a ‘Cook’ feature built in to help walk you step by step through a dish’s cooking process.
Fitness+ and iCloud+ offer expanded benefits too
In addition to Apple News+ becoming better than ever, Apple Fitness+ has gotten its own recent improvements such as:
- a big Fitness app redesign and expansion in iOS 18
- Strava integration
- multi-week programs for building strength, conditioning for pickleball, peak yoga poses, and breath meditation
- new Time to Walk episodes, guest Fitness+ trainers, and more
If you use an Apple Watch, Fitness+ continues to offer a unique advantage over competing services thanks to its integration with watch hardware.
Finally, iCloud+ expanded recently when the Apple Invites app launched, since only subscribers can create new events.
That’s true no matter which Apple One tier you use, but it’s a nice reason to keep the bundle overall. And over time, as we all use more and more cloud storage, the 2TB provided by Apple One Premier becomes a greater asset.
What’s coming next for Apple One Premier?
I already mentioned that Apple News+ is getting a big new Food section and recipe experience in iOS 18.4.
What’s sure to make that feature even more useful is the launch of a new Home product that the cooking mode seems built for.
Apple’s upcoming ‘HomePad’ is expected to launch this spring and could be the perfect device to assist you in the kitchen. If you want to get the most out of the HomePad, upgrading to Apple One Premier might be more worthwhile.
There are also rumblings of a brand new service finally coming to Apple One later this year, and there’s a good chance it will be exclusive to Premier subscribers.
The AI-powered “wellness and coaching” service sounds like a key part of Apple’s massive ambitions in the health space.
Meanwhile, all of these various Apple One Premier improvements also benefit from Apple’s success with its other services.
For example, if Apple TV+ can maintain momentum after Severance ends, that will lead to more Apple One subscribers overall. And the Individual and Family plans for Apple One are the first step to Apple locking in more Premier users.
Are you an Apple One Premier subscriber? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.
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