Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
68,179
38,959


Apple's latest Apple Music beta app for Android may have revealed the name of the company's forthcoming app dedicated to classical music, suggesting a release might not be too far away.

apple-music-android-listen-now.jpg

Last year, Apple announced the purchase of classical music streaming service Primephonic, which features search and browse functionality specially optimized for classical music.

Apple said that the best elements of Primephonic would become a part of ‌Apple Music, providing subscribers with an improved classical music experience.

The company also said it would also launch a new Apple Music app in 2022 dedicated to classical music, combining Primephonic's user interface and specializations for classical music with ‌Apple Music‌ and features such as Lossless and Spatial Audio.

The name of the forthcoming dedicated app was not mentioned at the time. However, lines of code discovered by 9to5Google in the Apple Music beta on Android suggest it could be called "Apple Classical," with the code string referring to the ability to open a compatible track directly in the optimized service.

Apple recently advertised a job for a UX Designer to work on the new standalone music app. According to the job description, the candidate would be expected to "provide UX expertise and new perspectives specifically for Primephonic" in order to help realize a distinct experience for classical music that would include "visual, audial, and haptic" aspects.

While the job listing suggested that the Primephonic brand will persist in some form as part of Apple's classical offering, it could well exist as a sub-section of the service under an umbrella name, and "Apple Classical" would seem to fit the bill.

Earlier this week, Apple made another music-related financial move by acquiring AI Music, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to generate personalized soundtracks and adaptive music.

Article Link: Android Apple Music Beta Code Refers to Unreleased 'Apple Classical' App
 
Dumb. I am sure old people are very capable and would find a category called „Classical Music“ in the existing AM app themselves
Classical music is far more complicated than artist - track name. You also get important fields such as orchestra, composer, conductor, soloist, movement etc. When I ripped my mum's classic CD library. naming and tagging it was a nightmare!

I really hope this is an add-on for Apple Music in the same way that lossless and Atmos was rather than a separate subscription.
 
Dumb. I am sure old people are very capable and would find a category called „Classical Music“ in the existing AM app themselves
Well, more than old people listen to and perform classical music. There is already a category in the current AM app and those users have been complaining since the beginning because they search for and consume music using a different focal point. There are elements they want to search for that are not tracked in popular music and not well represented in the interfaces of any of the major player. They tried to shoehorn it in, but the results were lackluster.

A separate app is the best way to give them what they need without having two completely Different design languages in different parts of the same app.
 
by that logic, lossless and spatial audio should also have been paid upgrades to Apple Music
Not really, those aren’t services, although they do require the right hardware to use (and guess who sells that hardware). Classical music is it own little audio world with its own die-hard audience, not unlike podcasting, and Apple knows it can monetise it.
 
What’s the market size for specialised classical music service? Will consumers be willing to pay extra for the improvement over AM’s implementation?
 
Imagine Apple actually attended to 90% of the worlds population, and updated their outdated, feature-poor, clunky, non hardware accelerated, iTunes for windows. Imagine.

Great image of Apple software design for all those millions of people who use an iPhone and a windows computer. That trash coding is surely going to entice people to buy Macs

/s
 
Dumb. I am sure old people are very capable and would find a category called „Classical Music“ in the existing AM app themselves

Probably.

But just like if I want Apple related info I come to MacRumors not New York Times.

Any "Classical music" has so many interpreters, it's just a mess to only filter by "artist" (probably dead for centuries).

I believe this app will be made for dilettantes, not your usual Joe who wants to listen to Mozart and doesn't care about the interpreter. Just like MacRumors is for "advanced users" in search of specific info.
 
Can’t come soon enough. With the current Apple Music app it’s often impossible to even see what a track title is, let alone any details about it. For example, on the album of Elgar’s Enigma Variations all the titles are cut off on the iPhone, making it impossible to tell which track is which.
0852630376da386b708694f692e9ed28.jpg
 
Prediction. Your sub for Apple Music will give you access to this app too, or for just classical fans you can subscribe to Apple Classical only for $5 a month.

I don’t see this providing any more classical music than is already within the Apple Music app, just providing a better, more appropriate way of accessing it. As such, I wouldn’t expect to pay any more for it than I already do.
 
Segregating Classic out of Apple Music would make it easier to search by composer, so this is a welcome change and I don’t think Apple will charge extra, unless the service includes a whole lotta concert video contents.
 
Dumb. I am sure old people are very capable and would find a category called „Classical Music“ in the existing AM app themselves
Are you saying young people don’t listen to classical music? Also, the current Apple Music search and features are in adequate for classical music. Especially Siri. I asked Siri to play Mahler’s symphony 5 and it started playing the 2nd movement instead of the first. Yikes.
 
I loves me some Apple Music sub … only because I get it free with Verizon… but I also used Apple Match which I think I don’t even need to pay for. Before this I was an early adopter of Google Music where you could upload anything to your library and still grandfathered into the old price.
 
I would seriously consider a subscription for the first time, if this is done right. It will be interesting to see, where Apple draws the border of classical music, since there is a lot of grey area: Crossover, film music, musicals...
 
While I’m looking forward to exploring the new classical music app, I’m more interested in Apple’s plans to fully redesign and streamline their macOS and iOS Apple Music application. Both apps are horrendously slow when searching for songs and loading new pages.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.