Apple One is missing a key service that really needs help

Apple One offers a lot of benefits, providing services for TV, games, music, and more. But the package is missing a key Apple service that could really use its help: books.

Apple Books continues to lose ground to competitors, and Apple One could help

Apple Books has long been my go-to service for both ebooks and audiobooks.

I think the Books app provides a better experience than competitors like Kindle and Audible. And I've always been a fan of the work of the Books editorial team.

But it's clear that Books is not an area of success for Apple.

Amazon dominates the market, and now Spotify is starting to do the same with audiobooks.

To make matters worse, Amazon announced today that it is giving Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers access to audiobooks.

I've previously argued that Apple Books could benefit from a significant acquisition to integrate library content into its app.

But here's a proposal that might be much more palatable to Apple:

Add a monthly discount on Apple Books to the Apple One bundle.

Adding Apple Books to Apple One Premier

Apple could do this in a number of ways.

Perhaps the simplest and most cost-effective would be to allow Premier subscribers to access one ebook or audiobook at a time for as long as they have an active subscription.

This could encourage more existing Apple One users to upgrade from individual or family plans to Premier. And for existing Premier subscribers, there's another reason to keep that $37.95 fee.

Apple's revenue from its core services would benefit. And Apple Books would benefit, too, as users would get used to using an app they're probably ignoring now.

Best comment from James

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Apple One is terribly inflexible. I pay for an individual subscription. I never use Apple Arcade, but I would love to have Apple News+. At the same time, I'm not willing to pay $13 more for News+ a la carte or $17 more for the Premier package to get it; so for now, I just do without it. Apple One should make it easy to mix and match a package that works for an individual user/family. For example, Individual might include iCloud 50GB + TV + Music + one other service of the user's choice, with additional add-ons (e.g. family option, more iCloud storage, one other service, etc.) for $6 each.

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Also, Amazon and Spotify have already proven that users are willing to see books as part of a monthly subscription rather than as separate purchases. Apple just hasn't caught up with this trend.

Making this change would give Apple One a nice infusion of new benefits, and for many users, it would save them from paying a monthly subscription fee.

What do you think? Should Apple Books be part of Apple One? Let us know in the comments.