Apple loves its first-party apps and devices. iPhone, Mac, Apple TV, Apple News, Apple Music—you can live a robust, tech-y life without ever leaving Apple’s ecosystem. But there didn’t used to be a way to bundle all these services together, and if you wanted to buy every Apple device and subscribe to every Apple product, it would cost you more than a pretty penny. Then, in 2020, Apple introduced Apple One, an all-in-one subscription that gave you access to Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and 50GB of iCloud+ storage. Or, with an upgrade, you could also toss in Apple Fitness+ and Apple News+, as well as bump yourself up to 2TB of storage.
The problem? While Apple One is still cheaper than paying for each of Apple’s services separately, it’s also seen a pretty hefty price increase since launch. Originally releasing with a starting price of $14.95/month and a max price of $29.95/month, it’ll now cost you anywhere from $19.95/month to a steep $37.95/month. Has the service really improved so much in five years to be worth the additional cost, or are you better picking out the specific Apple services you really want, and only subscribing to them?
The Apple One Plans
Apple currently has three Apple One plans, and the basics are the same as they ever were. Right now, you can subscribe to:
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The Individual plan, which gives you Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 50GB of iCloud+ storage for $19.95 a month (up from $14.95 a month in 2020).
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The Family plan, which gives you and up to five people Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 200GB of iCloud+ storage for $24.95 a month (up from $19.95 a month in 2020).
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The Premier plan, which gives you and up to five people Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness+, Apple News+, and 2TB of iCloud+ storage for $37.95 a month (up from $29.95 a month in 2020).
Already, there are a few key takeaways to consider. First, all of these packages have increased in price beyond the pace of simple inflation, according to the official US Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator—although the Family plan does come closest. Second, there’s no way to get Apple News+ and Apple Fitness+ in one of the cheaper plans, although that’s always been the case. Third, while there’s still a lot of value to be had if you have a whole household of Apple fanatics, the base offerings are the same as they always have been (with no extra in-app bonuses for Apple One subscribers), which doesn’t paint a great picture for Apple.
Yet, the whole story is a bit more nuanced than these hard numbers suggest. Apple had made improvements to its services since 2020 to go along with the higher prices, although depending on your plan, you might not see as many of them.
Here’s what you get from Apple One in 2025, across all the different bundled services.
Apple News+
Maybe the biggest value-adds for Apple One subscribers are in Apple News+, which is a shame for everyone below the Premier plan. Seemingly taking cues from papers like The New York Times, Apple’s premium news app subscription has seen a bit of a refocusing of late, with more attention being paid to games and recipes.
Most recently, there’s Emoji Game, which is like Wordle but with emoji. Introduced for World Emoji Day 2025, it supplements the app’s existing puzzles, which launched in 2023 with mainstays like daily crosswords and Sodoku. That means there’s plenty to choose from even if emoji aren’t your cup of tea, though this latest addition is certainly the most unusual, and shows a dedication to making unique experiences that I hope will continue into the future. (If you’re wondering how emoji Wordle would even work, essentially, Apple gives you three short phrases, then asks you to use a selection of emoji to fill in the phrases using as few moves as possible. The games includes Genmoji made using Apple Intelligence, which could help add variety to the game as it goes on, but may also rub AI skeptics the wrong way.)
If you’re not one for puzzles, the News+ app also got a Food section this spring that comes packed with “tens of thousands of recipes, restaurant reviews, kitchen tips, and more.” These are pulled from various sources, including publishers like Allrecipes and Serious Eats that make their articles available for free, although Apple’s editors do help curate them and package everything into an easily filtered, stylistically cohesive list.
To be honest, puzzles and recipes aren’t what I go to news for, but I know I’m in the minority at this point. With these additions, Apple is doing its best to stay relevant as apps like NYT Games continue to blow up.
Apple Music+
If you’re not much of a news person, you’ll be happy to know that Apple Music+ has gotten its own fair share of upgrades since 2020. Most notably, in 2021, Apple Music+ brought spatial audio and expanded lossless audio to its entire catalog. Now, with iOS 26 on the horizon, it’s set to get its largest set of new features in the years since. These include time-synced translated lyrics, pronunciation guides for lyrics, an Automix feature that will help your tracks seamlessly blend together, animated cover art on the lock screen, the ability to pin your favorite playlists, and a karaoke feature for subscribers with both an iPhone running iOS 26 and an Apple TV.
That’s a lot, and while these features aren’t technically public yet, you can already try them out via the developer beta, with the public beta likely set to drop soon.
Apple Fitness+
I don’t make it to the gym as often as I should, so my eyes have kind of glazed over these upgrades as they’ve come out. That said, my colleague Beth Skwarecki would be a big fan of one of them: If you’re a Strava user, Apple Fitness+ now offers Strava integration, for more accurate running stats. Otherwise, the service also now has multi-week exercise programs, to help you build up your body over time, and has made its Custom Plans, introduced in 2023, easier to find.
Apple Arcade
Gaming! That’s something I do know about. Apple Arcade has been a bit of an odd duck since it launched, debuting exclusive games and ports of popular titles from console and PC, all without any sort of microtransactions attached. The selection is always changing, with new games being added even as others are either dropped or lose exclusivity. There’s some good stuff to be found here, with my personal favorite being Sonic Dream Team, but the focus on more traditional games has garnered a mixed reception, given that the audience is still iPhone and iPad gamers, who might be more used to touchscreen-centric controls and pick-up-and-play action. There’s also often an outcry from people who don’t have Apple devices whenever a big new exclusive is announced for the service, but that’s a pain gamers should be used to by this point.
Whether or not Apple Arcade is worth it for you probably depends on its library at the time of your subscription, but there’s one upcoming upgrade that’ll make it better regardless of the games on offer—the Apple Games app. Coming in iOS 26, this app is technically available for everyone, but is controller navigable and also conveniently lists all the Apple Arcade games in one place, free from distractions. That’s a big improvement over scrolling the App Store to find them all.
Apple TV+
The Apple TV experience has gotten a number of feature upgrades over the year, most notably an app redesign with better content discovery and improved subtitles and dialogue enhancements in tvOS 18. The catch is that many of these improvements were exclusive to Apple TV streaming box owners, but there’s one thing every device with an Apple TV+ app supports: Streaming new Apple TV+ shows.
Apple’s streaming library has seen a number of runaway hits since 2020, with the breakout addition being Severance, a sci-fi workplace drama from Ben Stiller. Spy thriller Slow Horses has also seen praise, as has Seth Rogen’s Hollywood takedown The Studio, which recently earned a ton of Emmy nominations. A new age of prestige TV seems to be here, with Apple leading the charge.
Apple iCloud+
Finally, there’s iCloud+. You’d think this would be the simplest of Apple One’s services to keep track of, and you’d be right. You get the same amount of storage as you got in 2020. But there is one new wrinkle here, and that’s Apple Invites. Back in the day, I used to organize all my in-person events through Facebook, but as I’ve migrated to other platforms, I’ve swapped over to dedicated party planning apps like Partiful. Apple Invites is Apple’s answer to these, but oddly enough, you need to be subscribed to iCloud+ to create invitations with it (although anyone can receive invitations). A bit of a bummer, but hey, it’s a value-add for Apple One subscribers.
So is Apple One worth the monthly cost?
After breaking down all of Apple One’s improvements since launch, I think it’s safe to say the service hasn’t been resting on its laurels, but certain households are still likely to get more use out of it than others.
Personally, I can’t see subscribing to it as an individual, unless you only own Apple devices and organize your whole life through its services. If you don’t regularly exercise with Apple Fitness, chill out with Apple TV+ or Apple Arcade, and catch up on the world with Apple News+, you’re probably going to be paying for more than you can possibly use. And you’re also getting the heaviest price increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator. I’m not sure I have the time to make use of all the new improvements to justify that.
If you’re in a household that has a lot of Apple users in it, though, the service starts to make more sense. Apple One’s Premier subscription, while expensive, still saves you $29 a month on subscribing to each of Apple’s service’s individually—and importantly, that’s when compared to the subscription cost for one person (except for iCloud+ and Apple Music+, where the price is compared to those service’s own sharing plans). Imagine a whole group of six using Apple One regularly, and it starts to feel more than reasonable, even with the new pricing. Plus, there’s the Family Plan, which is great for households that don’t need Fitness+ and News+, or quite so much storage data.
Still, I’d love to see cheaper tiers with access to Fitness+ and News+ in the future. If you’re just one person and you happen to love Apple, it probably doesn’t feel great to pay for a bundle meant for a house full of people just to get to play Emoji Game, even if bundling it with your other Apple subscriptions still means you’re saving money overall.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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