Apple raises prices on some streaming services as licensing costs climb

Apple is raising prices on Apple Music subscriptions as well as certain Apple One plans as the company faces higher licensing costs. The tech giant last week hiked prices for Apple Music plans across subscription tiers. Individual plans will rise by $1 a month to $11.99, while student plans will increase by the same amount to $6.99 a month. Prices for the Apple Music family plan are also rising by $3 per month to a new monthly rate of $19.99. The company also hiked prices for some tiers of Apple One – the company's bundle that allows consumers to subscribe simultaneously to Apple TV, Music, iCloud+, Arcade, Fitness+ and News+ or the first four services. Prices for the Apple One family tier are set to rise by $2 to a new total of $27.95 per month. The individual Apple One subscription, which includes the same four services but with 50 gigabytes of iCloud storage, is unchanged at $19.95 a month. Apple One's Premier package, which includes all six of the company's subscription services with up to 2 terabytes of storage and may be shared among five people, will rise in price by $2 to $39.95 per month. The price increases apply to consumers in the U.S. as well as other countries around the world. The moves weren't announced by Apple, which adjusted the prices for the various subscriptions and tiers on its website on Friday. Apple told 9to5Mac, "As a result of rising licensing costs, Apple Music is increasing its subscription price beginning today." Apple's subscription price hikes follow higher iPad and MacBook prices. In late June, Apple announced price hikes for its iPad tablets and MacBook laptops amid rising memory chip costs. The company raised the price of the MacBook Air by $200 to a new total of $1,299, while the budget Neo laptop price rose from $599 to $699. The price of a MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage rose $300 to $1,999, while the iPad Air with 128 gigabytes of storage rose from $599 to $749.