Apple Music Classical to launch on March 28th

After months of speculation, Apple Music Classical finally has a launch date. The app will be available for download on March 28th.

Apple acquired the streaming service, Primephonic, which specialized in the classical music genre, in 2021. Ever since then, fans of the old service have been expecting the electronics giant to include the content as part of the Apple Music subscription.  But the Cupertino company had other plans, instead of bundling it in its existing app, it decided to make Apple Music Classical a standalone app with its own dedicated catalog. The existence of the app was discovered in the code and privacy policy in iOS 16.4 Beta 3.

Apple Music Classical will be included in Apple Music plans

The new app will offer hundreds of playlists, and over 5 million tracks, from masterpieces to new releases, and albums that are exclusive to the platform. A screenshot on the App Store says that there are over 700 playlists that have been curated by experts, and also has essential playlists to help beginners to the genre get started. Apple states that the app’s search function will help users find music by composer, work, conductor, specific recordings of a single work, or even the catalog number. Apple Music Classical will display complete and accurate metadata for the music, composer biographies, and other information, similar to what Primephonic had offered. Users will be able to stream music in 192 kHz/24 bit Hi-Res Lossless audio, and this will include thousands of recordings in immersive spatial audio with Dolby Atmos.

Its app store listing states that Apple Music Classical requires an internet connection to work, i.e. you can only stream the music, it does not support downloading files for offline playback. The description of the app also mentions that users may use it to cast the music on wireless devices that support AirPlay. Apple Music Classical is compatible with iPhones and iPod touch running on iOS 15.4 or later. The app will not have an iPadOS version, but The Verge reports that Apple is working on an Android version of Apple Music Classical, which is coming soon.

The app will be available in Countries where Apple Music is available except Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. While it won’t be ready at launch in China, Japan and Korea, the company will bring the service to these regions later.

You can pre-order Apple Music Classical from the App Store now to get a notification when it is released. While the app is free to download, the service itself is not. You will need an Apple Music subscription to use it, Apple Music Classical is included (at no extra cost) in the Individual, Student, Family and Apple One plans. However, it is not available with the Apple Music Voice plan.

Having an app exclusively for classical music would be appreciated by users who don’t want to listen to other music genres, and vice-versa. Doing otherwise, could clutter the experience.  A specialized app on the other hand, will also help streamline the content discovery.  The company has played it smart by including Apple Music Classical for free in the Apple Music plans, this could attract more users from rival streaming services such as Spotify.

Do you listen to classical music?

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