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Imagine how "Siri" would interpret "Hey, Siri! Play Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125".
Usually, Siri handles that just fine in my experience. But that wasn't my point, actually. I'd like to play from the HomePods using the iPhone app, but it only supports playing music on the HomePods via AirPlay, which I'm not interested in.
 
It appears that it is NOT available on my M1 Mac’s app store when I toggle to “iphone & iPad apps”.
 
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Usually, Siri handles that just fine in my experience. But that wasn't my point, actually. I'd like to play from the HomePods using the iPhone app, but it only supports playing music on the HomePods via AirPlay, which I'm not interested in.
For a challenge, try getting Siri to play The The -

But to your point, it’s got some limitations. A clumsy workaround could be that you use the classical app to find the music you want to play, add it to a playlist, and then access that playlist in regular Apple Music.
 
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It is behind the regular Music app in terms of features and interface, but it is a great start, and not annoying to use even now. I hope that the fact that it comes on the app store instead of in OS updates means that it will be improved faster. A minor issue is that some of the items that appear on the app and playlists are not classical, but this is not frequent enough to be a problem for me.
 
Forgive me if someone already figured this out and posted it, but just in case:

It's valuable to know that anything you save to the Classical Music app's library is automatically added to your library in the regular Music app.

This allows you to do two things that aren't obvious: CarPlay and offline listening.

Some of you have noted that the Classical Music app doesn't have a CarPlay app. But if you want to listen to music you've saved your Classical Music app library in the car, just open the Music app in CarPlay and go to your library and you'll find the albums or tracks from your Classical Music app right there (mixed in with all the music in your Apple Music app library).

Regarding offline listening - the Classical Music app itself does not appear to allow you to save music from its own library to your device. When you're offline, every screen of the Classical Music app says "You're Offline. Turn off airplane mode or connect to Wi-Fi."

But you can save the music in your Classical Music app library to your iPhone for offline listening. Just open the regular Apple Music app and go to the library. Everything in your Classical Music app library will appear in your regular Apple Music app library. From there, you can download the music to your device. Later, when you're offline, open the regular Apple Music app and go to the downloaded items in your library.

It's important to remember that many/most of the tracks and albums in the Classical Music app are in higher than CD quality resolution. Streaming them over cellular will use a lot of data, an important consideration for those of us that aren't on an unlimited data plan. So if you want to enjoy your Classical Music in your car, consider downloading them in the regular Apple Music app for offline listening.
 
Makes no sense that it's only an iPhone app. I want to use my MBP laying in the sofa listening through headphones or on my stereo.
Yea it’s pretty lazy on Apple’s part. Why not make it a universal app upon release? I use my iPad Pro with Apple Music all the time…not ONLY my phone. Granted, Classical works on iPad its just ugly as hell
 
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Makes no sense that it's only an iPhone app. I want to use my MBP laying in the sofa listening through headphones or on my stereo.
A dedicated macOS app and iPadOS app would be better, but there's an easy workaround:

Everything in your Classical Music app's library will automatically appear in your regular Apple Music app's library, including the Music app on your MBP or iPad (assuming you've enabled iCloud to sync your Music library across all of your devices).

Of course, the regular Music app on your Mac won't have all the metadata or extra documentation and listening notes about the music that the Classical Music app has. But while you're listening to the music using your mac connected to your stereo, you could open the Classical Music app on your iphone and read the listening notes there.
 
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  • Cloud storage: comically small amounts. I honestly don't know how Apple views this internally. It must be some kind of cognitive dissonance.
Subjective - I have 3 people using 115GB of 2TB so its way more than we need
  • Apple TV with some great shows but not many (I like around 50% of Apple's TV shows – the rest I don't care for). Once you've watched the ones you like, well, you don't open the app until something else arrives. That can be weeks or even months. On Amazon or Netflix there's enough old content to keep me interested for months.
Subjective - Just because you don't like it doesn't mean everyone doesn't like it
  • Apple Music pushes contemporary pop hard, and if you're over 40 it gets very tiresome. There is honestly space for a music app that takes an "oldies" or "gold" approach like some radio stations.
Subjective - You don't need to only follow their recommendations. Try finding music on your own and be surprised
  • Apple Arcade – some good games but again, once you'd played those you're interested in, you're not using it until the next interesting release is rationed out. Certainly no triple A titles, though, and nothing to get involved in. Just casual gaming.
Subjective - Just because you have ADD doesn't mean everyone does.
  • Apple News – actually quite good! But here in the UK it leans right wing a little in highlighted stories, perhaps because we have such a right-wing press. I'm on a free trial of this and use it often, but I wouldn't consider paying for it.
Subjective - Here in the USA it leans left wing but its not really about the news as much as it is about access to all the magazine subscriptions
  • Apple Fitness – good for you if you're into exercising. Mostly young 'uns I think.Again, once you're past 40 exercising regularly is a minority interest outside of general exercise like walking (and I KNOW people will reply below saying they're 60 and do circuit training – good for you. But you're an outlier.)
Subjective - I'm over 40 and have found Fitness+ to be a great service that I only started to use because it was included in my subscription and have been finding it a great option to shake up dull treadmill workouts.
 
No CarPlay App? No Apple Watch app?

I could understand if this was a 3rd party app but its Apple.

While it does work in CarPlay it would be nice to have access to search and access library.
 
Apple Music is a no-go for me. I signed up some while back, only to find that my favourite and rare classical recordings (CD rips) had been replaced by other, different recordings! Whaat?! I had to erase everything and restore from backup. Yes, I like hearing new recordings, but I don't like my favourites being trashed! For that reason I wouldn't touch Apple Music Classical (or Apple Music, for that matter).
Are these "your" rips or were they available in the Music collection from Apple? If you want access to your music that you personally added to iTunes(Music) you need to subscribe to iTunes Match.
 
Woke up super early to jam some Mozart 🎶. Unstoppable!

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Pretty nice. I’m sure integrating into the various external devices will eventually happen. My only complaint is, it seems confused when it comes to movies and musical. It’ll including individual songs from a musical, but not the whole musical. Same with movie soundtracks. I’d imagine it comes down to licensing or copyright dealios but it rides a very thin line how exactly they’re categorizing later genres.
 
Too expensive for an individual subscription unless you're SERIOUSLY into classical (and honestly, I don't know a single person who'd fall into that category).
I am, for one.

I am seriously into classical music. And other forms of music, as well.

@SkydiveGuy has answered your other concerns well.
That’s how Haydn intended it. He was ahead of his time. 😉
Actually, joking aside, he was.

They don't refer to him as "The Father of the Symphony" for nothing.

And he was hugely supportive - exceptionally generous with support, contacts, advice - of gifted younger artists (such as both Beethoven and Mozart).
Apple Music is a no-go for me. I signed up some while back, only to find that my favourite and rare classical recordings (CD rips) had been replaced by other, different recordings! Whaat?! I had to erase everything and restore from backup. Yes, I like hearing new recordings, but I don't like my favourites being trashed! For that reason I wouldn't touch Apple Music Classical (or Apple Music, for that matter).
That would be a serious concern for me, also.
 
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I would have preferred that Apple found a way to make the interface work within the Apple Music app. Listening to classical music would have been much more accessible. Now you need a separate app for every platform - iPhone, iPad, AppleTV, WatchOS, CarPlay, Android, MacOS. Also, we'll have to wait for them to make a classical service available so that we can enjoy on Sonos or with Alexa integration. If they had just come up with a new menu system within the existing app, none of these would be needed.
 
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I like it so far, sound quality is good as is the discovery system. I just wonder why the icon is a different shade of red from the Apple Music app. It’s close enough I had to study them for a moment.

This app brings more value to the Apple One bundle. I appreciate every aspect of that, especially Music, News, the 2TB iCloud cap, and Fitness.
 
Too expensive for an individual subscription unless you're SERIOUSLY into classical (and honestly, I don't know a single person who'd fall into that category).
I am seriously into classical music. Apple Music is (probably) the best service for classical. While I haven’t had a chance to really dig into the app, it’s a fantastic addition to my subscription.

As to all your other comments, I have Apple One Premier, mainly for the 2TB of storage for backing up all my files. I am over 40 and I use all the services pretty regularly. The one I probably use the least is the News app. I like it, but I have little time to read news articles and magazines. I use Fitness+ DAILY and find it a pretty fantastic way to exercise.

My point is that everybody has different needs and wants. Just because it isn’t for you doesn’t mean it isn’t for anybody. Considering Apple is making nearly $80 billion on services I don‘t think I’m alone in liking Apple’s services.
 
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