FamilyPlan
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iHeartRadio now offers an on-demand family plan for $15 per month
Last year, iHeartRadio rolled out its on-demand streaming plan to everyone, and now it's adding a family tier. With the All Access Family Plan, six family members can get their own on-demand profiles and have access to personalized playlists, unlimited skips on customized stations, live radio, podcasts, offline listening, custom playlists and, of course, on-demand listening.
Spotify may start cracking down on family plan sharing (updated)
Spotify's Premium for Family plan is a good deal: $15 a month snags you up to six ad-free accounts on the service, which would normally cost $10 each. It's not a surprise, then, that people have been sharing the accounts among friends to save a few bucks. Now Spotify appears to be cracking down on the practice.
Verizon makes its 'unlimited' plans even more complicated
In a move that is somehow both incredibly simple and bafflingly complicated, Verizon has launched a new unlimited data plan and is shaking up the way its family plans work. The carrier -- which seems to have a very loose understanding of what "unlimited" means -- has introduced an "aboveunlimited" plan option, which is apparently more unlimited than the existing "gounlimited" and "beyondunlimited" plans. And it's pretty pricey.
Google's Project Fi lets you add younger kids to your family plan
Google added family plans to Project Fi a long time ago, but it wasn't really built for the younger children in your family. The company is fixing that today -- you can now add kids under 13 to your Fi group plan through a Google account controlled using Family Link. You can track and set alerts for your little ones' data usage, and use Family Link to set time and app limits.
Pandora unveils a $15-a-month unlimited family plan
The streaming business is a tough game, especially if your company isn't called Spotify or Apple Music. Mid-tier player Pandora recently announced it had signed up six million subscribers so far compared to 75 million for Spotify, but it's trying to boost that number with a new Premium Family plan. It offers unlimited streaming with no ads for up up to six family members at $15 per month, matching Apple and Spotify's pricing.
LastPass Families can manage passwords for a household of six
It's hard enough keeping track of your own passwords, let alone your family's. Unless you plan on outfitting your brood with biometric rings, your best bet is to sign up to a password managing tool. That way you can keep track of the logins your clan is racking up, and even reference them to create unique passwords in the future. Most popular services, such as 1Password, already offer family plans. And soon that small list will include LastPass too.
Google's Project Fi helps you pay your share of the phone bill
It's not much fun to split up a wireless family plan, especially if you're not splitting it evenly. How much do your kids owe if they're only paying some of their bill? What about that roommate who always uses too much data and drives the bill higher? Google wants to fix that. It's adding a Group Repay feature to Project Fi that lets group plan owners not only determine who owes what, but collect on that share in short order. You set the criteria for what members owe, such as a fixed amount or extra data use. After that, fellow Fi members just have to wait for reminders before they contribute their share.
Google simplifies sharing notes, calendars and photos with family
Google knows that a large part of its customer base probably have families. That's why it introduced a family plan option to Google Music a couple of years ago, as well as Family Library sharing for the Play Store last year. When YouTube TV launched a few weeks ago, you could add up to five additional family members to your plan from the start. Now, Google is ready to add family-friendly features to even more of its products; namely: Calendar, Keep and Photos. With Calendar, this means that you can now have a shared family calendar with everyone's schedules in one place. A shared Keep account means you can share shopping lists and notes so that everyone's on the same page. And finally, a shared Photos group means that anyone in the family can add photos and videos to the same album without much hassle. To be fair, these are all features that you could already do before; Google is just making it that much easier with a pre-rolled family group that you can create right from the start. These family sharing features will roll out starting today in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, the UK and the US.
Amazon Music Unlimited now has a family plan
It's hard to compete in the streaming music world unless you have a family plan, and Amazon knows it. The shopping pioneer has introduced a family plan for Amazon Music Unlimited that lets as many as six people listen to tunes for a low price. If you're not a Prime subscriber, the pricing is a very run-of-the-mill $15 per month. You won't save anything by leaving Apple, Google or Spotify. However, it's another story for Prime subscribers -- you have an additional option to subscribe for $149 per year, or $30 less than what everyone else pays. If you're already devoted to Amazon and don't care for rivals' exclusives or features, this may be your obvious choice.
Google's Project Fi now has family plans
If you don't use a ton of data, Google's Project Fi (a cell phone service that jumps between Sprint, T-Mobile and US Cellular, depending on signal strength) is one of the better deals in wireless. Now, Google's making it a bit easier and cheaper to use if you have a family: the company is rolling out group plans starting today. If you're a Project Fi user, you can add up to six total people to your plan. Each additional user costs $15 per month for unlimited talk and text, down from the $20 Project Fi charges when starting up service on your own. Data stays at the same $10 per GB rate that Fi has always offered.
Deezer's family streaming plan is now available across Europe
Like most streaming services, music or otherwise, Deezer has a family plan that offers enough individual accounts to cover your whole household for a significantly discounted price. This particular subscription option, however, was previously exclusive to users in France and T-Mobile customers in the Netherlands, but as of today, it's now available throughout Europe -- apart from in Sweden, for whatever reason. For €15 or £15 per month, the family plan gets you six separate Premium+ accounts (€10/£10 on their own), each of which can be used across two devices, or three for the primary login.
Google brings Family Library sharing to the Play Store
The Google Play Store's rumored Family Library feature officially goes live today with expanded sharing options for all of your apps, movies, TV shows and books. With a little bit of setup, your Google Play Store purchases are now available across every device in your household.
Spotify's Family Plan now covers six people for $15 a month
While Spotify has offered Family Plans for some time now, rival music streaming services, particularly those from Apple and Google, have it beat in terms of price. Today, the company has addressed that issue, allowing up to six family members (or friends) to grab a Premium subscription for $15/£15/€15 a month. Previously, linking just five accounts would cost double the price it does today.
1Password's family plan manages log-ins for up to five people
Music streaming services aren't the only apps where a family plan can come in handy. 1Password, the popular log-in vault software, is offering a new family tier of its own. For $5 a month, up to five people can get individual accounts and password vaults under one subscription. Don't worry, if you have more than five folks in your household, you can add them for an additional $1 per month. If you're familiar with 1Password, you know that there's an individual option that allows you to buy the app for $50 -- which is actually cheaper than this new monthly plan.
Google Play Music's family plan goes live this week
Back in September, Google announced that it would offer a family plan for its Play Music subscription service, and today it's finally launching. Just like Apple Music, $14.99 every month will get you and up to five additional family members access to the Google Play streaming music library. That includes access to 35 million songs on demand, ad-free playback (naturally) and the ability for each family member to stream simultaneously on their own devices.
Google Play Music family plan gives six people tunes for $15 a month
Family pricing has been all the rage when it comes to music-streaming services. After the likes of Rdio, Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music announced reduced rates for you and your family, Google has a family plan of its own for Play Music. Mountain View is offering access to its library of tunes for up to six people for $15 a month. That's exactly what Apple offers, and it's a much better deal than Rdio and Spotify, which only allow two people to stream for that price. With Play Music, each member of the crew will be able to listen on any device and the app will serve up recommendations that are tailored to each user. Google says it's still "putting the finishing touches" on the family sharing, and it plans to roll it out later this year. Get all the news from today's Google event right here.
T-Mobile's latest family plan gives everyone 10GB of full-speed data
You knew T-Mobile wasn't going to let Sprint's sweet family plan go unanswered, didn't you? Sure enough, the magenta network has trotted out an upgraded Simple Choice family plan that gives two people unlimited calling, text and 10GB of full-speed data (each, not total) for the same $100 that Sprint is asking. That's not as alluring if you regularly consume gigs upon gigs of internet content (Sprint's data is also unlimited), but T-Mobile is also charging just $20 for every additional line instead of Sprint's $40. If you have phone-toting kids, that could add up. This is also cheaper than what you'd get at AT&T or Verizon, where you're looking at $140 or more to give a family of four 10GB of shared data. You'll have to wait a day (until July 15th) to change plans if you're already a T-Mo family subscriber, but it's probably worth the short wait. Just don't tell Marcelo Claure that.
Tidal is the latest streaming service to offer a family plan
Following in the footsteps of Spotify, Rdio and, most recently, Apple Music, Tidal has announced a family plan of its own. With this new pricing scheme, Jay Z's music-streaming service will allow a primary account holder to have multiple people, up to four, under one roof. Tidal's discount is fairly simple: you get 50 percent off for each person added to your main subscription, including both the Premium and HiFi options -- which are $10 and $20 per month, respectively. A few weeks ago, Tidal also introduced student pricing, in an effort to match what competitors are offering. The real value to listeners, however, may ultimately come down to Tidal's exclusive content, as evidenced by the recent news from Prince and Weezy F. Baby.
Sprint promo gives your family 12GB of shared data for $90 per month
Sprint is still bending over backwards to get you to switch to its network, and this time it's hoping to bring your whole family on board. The carrier is running a Family Share Pack promotion until March 12th that gives you 12GB of shared data for $90 per month (with waived line access fees) through the end of March 2016 -- a hefty bargain versus the 10GB T-Mobile is offering in its $100 deal. Sprint will also buy out your existing contract, albeit through gift cards, if you switch from another provider. This isn't the biggest deal given that your bill will get much bigger once the promo is over and those access fees kick in. All the same, it could be worth the effort if you were already bent on dropping your existing carrier (particularly AT&T or Verizon, which charge $160 for 10GB) and live in a Sprint-friendly area.
T-Mobile's new family plan gives everyone unlimited data
With the exception of Sprint, the big four US carriers tend to cap your data on family plans. T-Mobile's current offering only gives one person unfettered internet access, and even Sprint's $100 per month promo asks you to split a finite amount of data with your kin -- not so hot if Junior likes to marathon YouTube shows. Things are looking up, though. T-Mobile is launching a new (if "limited time") Simple Choice family plan on December 10th that gives everyone unlimited data. The base plan starts at $100 per month for two lines that also include unlimited voice and text, plus 5GB of data tethering per line. That's only half as many included lines as Sprint, but it's a better value if you're willing to pay extra to avoid limits. It beats the stuffing out of what you'll get at AT&T and Verizon, at least. The two carriers respectively start at $130 and $100 for 10GB of data on two lines, and you'll have to pay both for more capacity and more lines.
