Apple Planned to Launch a Classical Music App in 2022, But Time is Running Out

[trhoffmann]

Really liked primephonic.

Same here. I particularly miss their community forum. Suggestions from others in the Primephonic community exposed me to some great new (but lesser known) composers and their compositions, including many female composers. Also miss their thoughtfully curated playlists and their “classical composers by country” playlists.

Also miss the liner notes included with a great many of the albums in their catalog which helped explain the works and put them in the composer’s historical and personal contexts. Same with the performing artists.

 

[trhoffmann]

Pay per minute is the worst of all subscription-to-use cancers.
Really I don’t see a point of it ether to force people to use more expensive subscription.

Pay per minute is how Primephonic calculated how to reimburse artists whose works were streamed. It was not used to determine how much Primephonic subscribers had to pay, which was a flat rate per month regardless of how many minutes a given subscriber streamed.

 

[SoldOnApple]

I hope it gets a dedicated app. Classical music album and track naming conventions do not gel will with pop music and a fresh start is best to fix this issue once and for all.

 

[Rockin Robin]

For my part, the issue is that Apple Music is designed around popular music - a one-off amalgam of title and artist. Classical (and jazz for that matter) is more complex: the artist is unlikely to be JS Bach as he died in 1750 and and search for ‘A Sea Symphony lossless’ produces nonsense - the second hit is a Rolling Stones track, other offerings are either popular or Wagnerian. I would like one decent, modern, lossless recording on AM, while other versions made available on AClassical with an enhanced search engine with AJazz to follow.

 

[Realityck]

For my part, the issue is that Apple Music is designed around popular music - a one-off amalgam of title and artist. Classical (and jazz for that matter) is more complex: the artist is unlikely to be JS Bach as he died in 1750 and and search for ‘A Sea Symphony lossless’ produces nonsense - the second hit is a Rolling Stones track, other offerings are either popular or Wagnerian. I would like one decent, modern, lossless recording on AM, while other versions made available on AClassical with an enhanced search engine with AJazz to follow.

I agree that searching for classical content is a mess, with too many incorrect search hits found. It makes it extremely difficult to find even more obscure new classical composers or artists such as new ones that show up every year.

Perspective | 22 for ’22: Composers and performers to watch this year

How Carlos Simon, Kamala Sankaram, the Living Earth Show and 19 more artists are changing the classical landscape.

www.washingtonpost.com

 

[Aypol]

One of the definitions of "promise" is to "give good grounds for expecting (a particular occurrence or situation)."

Y'all are just nitpicking. I'm used to it… happens on nearly every front page story I have published in the last 8 years. The internet loves to nitpick.

You look at a secondary definition of a word and tell others that they are nitpicking? Come on.

Yes, I hope this app (or better, a version of the Music app upgraded for classical music) comes out soon too. But it‘a not like Apple made a binding agreement that it would come out in 2022. It'll probably be included in the next iOS version.

 

[coolfactor]

Seems odd that it's taking so long. Did they have a dedicated team for this, or is it a side project for the Apple Music team? Feels like it was forgotten. Otherwise, employees are being paid a salary for very little return to the company, and patient customers.

 

[SFjohn]

Listening to Daniel Barenboim on Qobuz as I type this.

Based on file quality, selection and ease of use it's replaced Spotify and Apple Music for me.

If Apple offers something in the classical space I'll take a look, but the bar to switching has become pretty high.

Sounds like Apple should acquire Qobuz… 😉

 

[MALmen]

When will the apple music rock n. roll app be released?

 

[Rockin Robin]

Apple Poetry anyone?

 

[SnappleRumors]

One of the definitions of "promise" is to "give good grounds for expecting (a particular occurrence or situation)."

Y'all are just nitpicking. I'm used to it… happens on nearly every front page story I have published in the last 8 years. The internet loves to nitpick.

A planned 2022 launch is just that a plan and plans change. A promise is a commitment that locks one in.

But wondering when it will be released is a fair question as macworld, techradar, and 9to5 were wondering the same thing in September and November.

 

[DavidSan]

I listen to a lot of classical music but don’t understand the need of a separate app for that. I prefer to have everything at the same place. Can someone enlighten me on the benefits of primephonic and how it could improve the experience to have a separate app? Genuinely curious here

In my opinion, the main problem with Apple Music is the way how it was assumed that people listen and discover music. AM is completely focused on singles and hits. This is music that takes about 3 to 4 minutes and can be listened out of context. Classic Music is different. You need to hear a context. For example, a movement has three, four, five parts spaces between them, etc., that are linked together by composer, classification, etc. A concert is curated. AM has the tendency to mix things that do not belong ruining the experience. Treating classical music as a hit collection is not a good way to experience it because you loose the curation that is supposed to go with it. Regarding discovery, it is the same thing. You do not discover Classical Music by popularity or hits, but by the history of the composer. That's almost impossible on AM as it is today.

 

[BornAgainApple]

I don’t see the word ‘promise’ in Apple’s press release. I do see the word ‘plans’; things don’t always go as planned.

 

[BornAgainApple]

One of the definitions of "promise" is to "give good grounds for expecting (a particular occurrence or situation)."

Y'all are just nitpicking. I'm used to it… happens on nearly every front page story I have published in the last 8 years. The internet loves to nitpick.

It’s clickbait, therefore I nitpick.

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

Apple hasn’t been good with deadlines this year. The Apple Silicon transition is supposed to be finished by the end of the yea, but the ASi Mac Pro is nowhere in sight.

 

[dotnet]

Who said it would be a separate app? I’d totally understand if it ended up being being one, given how terribly the artist/album/song schema works with classical music. If the entire UI of a music player is based around this schema then classical music fans either suffer, or resort to extensive manual metadata curation.

If it takes a separate app to not present a ’movement from a work by a composer and performed by an artist or ensemble’ as a “song” on an album or in a playlist, then so be it.

 

[MrRom92]

Nobody wants this. Something that will actually affect music aficionados with a big classical library? Proper FLAC support

 

[Chazak]

Hard to understand why there is a need for a separate app.

For me, all my music in one place is the only way to go.

 

[clyneca]

Has anyone else not been able to listen to any classical music playlist on the AppleTV music app? All other genres work for me but when it comes to classical, it just keeps spinning.

 

[tubular]

Classical music will outlast Apple.

 

[tubular]

Powermat all over
The year is it over yet, I have a collection of classical music, vinyls, that I ripped well iver 10 years ago so don’t need this

I've got a ton of ripped classical CDs, but what I'm missing is discovery, the chance to find out about something new.

 

[RedWeasel]

Y'all are just nitpicking. I'm used to it… happens on nearly every front page story I have published in the last 8 years.

Maybe the problem is not with the readers then?

 

[Joe Rossignol]

You look at a secondary definition of a word and tell others that they are nitpicking? Come on.

Yes, I hope this app (or better, a version of the Music app upgraded for classical music) comes out soon too. But it‘a not like Apple made a binding agreement that it would come out in 2022. It'll probably be included in the next iOS version.

I changed it to Planned. Done!

 

[tubular]

I listen to a lot of classical music but don’t understand the need of a separate app for that. I prefer to have everything at the same place. Can someone enlighten me on the benefits of primephonic and how it could improve the experience to have a separate app? Genuinely curious here

It's all about searchability, not sound quality.

The basic metadata pattern of most genres is track/artist/album. It's close to meaningless for classical works, though. Who's the "artist" -- the performer? the conductor? the orchestra? the composer? What's the "album" -- a concept that didn't come along for a hundred years after Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony? How do you shuffle classical -- certainly not at the movement level, but that's what Music thinks is the right thing to do. And so on.

 

[tubular]

The word is it keeps setting on fire like Airpower.

It's the cannon in the "1812 Overture" that does it.