What is Apple Music Select?

If you own an iPhone or other Apple device, your favorite streaming service might be Apple Music. The streamer offers access to over 100 million songs across many genres as well as live radio stations. You can listen to high-quality audio with compatible devices as well as immersive Spatial Audio content. There are also exclusive artist interviews and other Apple Music features you won’t find on YouTube Music. It’s completely ad-free once you have a standalone subscription, a free trial (which is usually offered to new subscribers with the purchase of an Apple device), or an Apple One subscription. Pricing, which just increased following the rise in Mac and iPad prices, starts at $11.99 per month for an individual plan or $19.99 per month for a family plan that you can share with up to five other people. But there is a new option to consider for certain locations called Apple Music Select.

With Apple Music Select, you can access a smaller selection of ad-free stations focused on regional content. Available in some countries if you have an iCloud+ subscription, it’s a useful way to get a taste of the service without diving straight into a full subscription. But it is also the response to the move from the Apple One bundled subscription to iCloud+, which offers benefits as well as additional storage, in participating regions.

Apple Music Select is one of the few upgrades available to iCloud+ subscribers in select countries, which will now also include Apple TV and Apple Arcade. The list of more than 100 countries where this service will be deployed by the end of September includes countries like Mozambique and Egypt. Interestingly, however, this list does not include the United States, Canada, Australia or the United Kingdom, nor any major European countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Russia and Sweden. If you live in a participating country, you’ll see the stations in the Home tab of the Apple Music app.

Apple Music Select’s music selection includes the best tracks from decades ago, dating back to the 1980s, as well as regional music. If you decide to subscribe to the full Apple Music service, which also offers a thoughtful selection of playlists among its perks, people in participating countries who subscribe to iCloud+ can sign up at a discounted rate. In Mozambique, for example, it costs $2.79 per month for an individual or $4.49 per month for a family. This is a small fee, but it also means that Apple Music is not included in iCloud+ by default in these countries, only Apple Music Select. For family plans, the discounted price is reserved for the person who manages and pays for the iCloud+ subscription. Upgrading unlocks the full service, including Spatial Audio tracks, lyric translations, automixing, playlist creation, exclusive content and much more.

While those in countries and regions where Apple Music Select isn’t available may feel shortchanged, there’s a catch. Apple users in these countries will no longer be able to purchase standalone Apple TV and Apple Arcade subscriptions: they will be integrated into iCloud+. Presumably, standalone Apple Music subscriptions will remain available at full price for those without iCloud+. But it is possible that Apple will do the same thing with this service as with Apple TV and Apple Arcade and possibly integrate it completely and exclusively into iCloud+.

These countries are essentially eliminating Apple One offerings in favor of iCloud+. The upgraded tier offers value just like Apple One, with inclusions that mirror what’s currently included with Apple One. Having free access to the included, limited Apple Music Select service is nice, as is the ability to add the full service for what will likely amount to a few dollars more per month in each country. However, if you live in one of these countries, you’ll need to compare the current cost of Apple One with the cost of iCloud+ with Apple Music Select or the additional cost for full Apple Music if you want to keep it and see how they compare. Whether it’s better value or not doesn’t matter anyway, since iCloud+ will be your only option. It is unclear whether this change will also affect North America and European countries.