New Apple Music Classical App | Everything You Need To Know!

22 Comments on New Apple Music Classical App | Everything You Need To Know!

1. I enjoy classical music so I will definitely be using this new service.

2. I enjoy classical music, I have a few albums in my iTunes Library, however I haven’t been listening to it for a very long time. I just go to Apple Music, search for spacial audio, etc and end up missing the classical ones. I am happy that the background of the peace will be added to it, so great to learn about the composers and the time in history they wrote them. Thank you for the info Fernando.

3. I am a high classical music aficionado! While searching for it on the regular Music app is serviceable, the use of metadata made it less than ideal. It’s not only the name of the piece and the composer, but the conductor, orchestra, choir, vocal soloist, instrumental soloists, etc. Searching for that on the regular app is a pain and something curated for classical is most welcome!

   I used Primephonic back in the day and it was a game changer for me!

4. I listen to some Classical music mainly 20th century, but mainly listen to Jazz. Classical and Jazz have similar listener in they know or want to know more about the music itself and not just let it play in the background. Personally I like Apple to do a separate Jazz app with similar features to find specific tracks they were the leader, but also the sideman on, Jazz composers, and so on. Separate would be great, but combininging Classical and Jazz in to the same app would work to, I mean Jazz is today’s classical music.

5. Classical music is my primary musical interest (but not my only one). One very important piece of information that you glossed over very quickly is the capability of iOS to handle 192/24 bit streaming (which is a relatively new capability). Previously, iOS could only handle up to 48/24 files. I did, accidentally, notice yesterday that my DragonFly Cobalt DAC was lighting up in pale blue while playing a HiRes recording on Apple Music(which only happens with the higher resolution files). This is a big and welcome change!

   • iOS can only handle bit rates up to 24/48. You need an external dac like the dragonfly you’re using when listening to 24/96 or 24/192.

6. This is awesome. Hopefully they change how they list the artists so there aren’t 50 different artist entries for a single orchestra like the current practise.

7. as a classical singer, the divide between classical and non-classical music by apple is TRANSFORMATIVE. it’s going to make learning operas, memorizing and researching music, and exposing myself to new works a million times easier. this truly sets apple apart. i don’t mean to gatekeep, but those who are advocating for the services to stay together just don’t understand how much more metadata and sorting classical music requires for a great user experience. apple is giving us that here!

   • I hear ya! Jazz folks also want this level of detail too. Apple Music app is just inadequate for serious music people.

8. You don’t have to listen to classical music to understand we’re talking about several centuries of compositions, each piece with different interpretations and performers.

9. Imagine if your favorite group lost all their original recordings and EVERY version you had to listen to was a cover.

   That’s basically classical music in a nutshell. Often it’s better to search by group or performer (instead of composer) because for every great version there HUNDREDS of terrible/meh versions floating out there. Honestly it’s great if a standalone app can fix that issue.

   • Agreed. Also as a classical music fan I want the deep cuts when listening to a composer.

10. I think this is fantastic and have already preordered the app. I listen to all kinds of music through Apple Music, but must admit that I tend to forget about the classical music you can find in there, even though I really like classical music. I’m therefor looking forward to see how this new app will function. And to answer you question then I’m just a listener, but I take time almost everyday to listen to music and not just having it in the background.

11. Interesting moves by the two major music streaming platforms in the last 24hrs. Spotify is trying to be like TikTok with its latest update while Apple announced this for AM. As a classical music enthusiast I’m rather pleased with my relatively recent move from Spotify to AM.

12. The key is how you search for music. In classical you want to search by composer and piece more than you want to search for a performer. I was a Primephonic subscriber and you could also search by period as in Renaissance, Baroque, Classical era (Mozart and Beethoven) , and Romantic (later 19th century). Primephonic would also recommend specific recordings of specific pieces while making a wide variety available. For example you could search Mozart and get a list of compositions with the most popular on top. Once you picked one Primephonic might recommend the Vienna Philharmonic recording while giving you access to the Berlin or New York orchestra versions as well. I can find classical music in Apple Music now but it lacks the organization and guidance the Primephonic had.

13. Classical music is consumed differently. It’s not about 3-4min pieces, but concerts. A special app makes a huge difference.

14. Here’s the reason why this couldn’t just be baked into Apple Music. Classical recordings are difficult to search for in apps like Apple Music. If I want to hear Mahler 2 I can search for that in Music, but I might get 75 different recordings by 65 orchestras and 50 conductors. Because there are so many recordings of the same piece it can be a pain to find the one you want easily in Apple Music. Also, some people have affinities for specific composers, conductors, or orchestras. I imagine Apple Classical will make it easy to find recordings based on your affinities to those different groups. Excited to use the app!

15. I think it a great initiative for such an immense tresure of classical music.

16. I have always wanted to know more about classical music. I have very cursory knowledge and struggled to know where to start. I feel like this is going to be my gateway to a whole new world!

17. Extremely excited about the scope and depth of this new app. Mystified and disappointed it won’t be available in Korea, where I plan to live beginning this fall. The richness of the catalogue and historical information is especially exciting!

18. Apple Music Classical is arriving right now in the App Store. I just downloaded it to my iPhone 14 Pro Max and actually, to my iPad Pro M1 and it works there too! It’s just not running on the full iPad screen, but the same way other iPhone only iOS apps do: an iPhone window displays that can be expanded to double size.

19. Just a couple weeks ago, I was wishing to hear a specific symphony by a fairly well-known composer (but no Beethoven or Mozart) and was surprised that Apple Music couldn’t give me that piece, rather just other “hits” by the same composer, so I’m hoping this new app bridged the gap.