Anyone can download Apple Music Classical, Apple’s new app for classical music. The app is free for everyone, but requires an Apple Music subscription. In particular, it is not available in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Taiwan, and Turkey.
The company says there are currently more than 5 million tracks available on the app. Although many works focus on Western classical music, I was able to find some Hindustani classical and Carnatic titles.
The new service is based on Primephonic, an Amsterdam-based company that Apple acquired in 2021. It also features limited albums, composer bios, and editorial details about certain important works.
The app focuses more on composer discovery than interpretation. In Apple Music Classical, the Catalog tab lets you browse tracks using filters such as composer, era, genre, conductor, orchestra, ensemble, and choir. Various instruments from the “Instruments” tab. You can find curated playlists under the Playlists tab.
You can add tracks to your library or your own playlist, but unfortunately tracks cannot be downloaded. However, you can add them to your library and download them from Apple Music. A slightly cumbersome process. Apple also made an interesting choice by not allowing shuffle in the Classical app.
All productions are available in Hi-Res lossless quality up to 192kHz/24-bit. Many tracks are also available with immersive spatial audio that supports Dolby Atmos if you have speakers or headphones that support this technology. Currently, only AirPods Pro (1st or 2nd generation), AirPods Max, AirPods 3rd generation, or Beats Fit Pro support spatial audio.
This app is currently only available for iPhone, so you can’t access the app on Mac or iPad. To use that app, you must be running iOS 15.4 or later.
On Monday, Apple also released the iOS 16.4 update with new emojis, web app notifications, voice isolation to improve call quality, and other features.
