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Apple plans to release a version of Apple Music dedicated to classical music later this month. announced todayThe Apple Music Classical app, currently available for pre-order on the App Store, will be separate from the main Apple Music app. However, access to this service is included with the $17/month Apple One subscription or most Apple Music subscriptions (excluding the basic $5/month Apple Music Voice tier).
In August 2021, Apple acquired a classical music service called Primephonic. If you’re wondering why classical music would benefit from a dedicated app, this PCMag article on Primephonic has the answer: Play music by recording orchestra’s name, not just song title or composer. You can search. Information about it, or the person who conducted it, or the soloist or other performer. Primephonic can also account for different spellings of a composer’s name, among other features.
Perhaps most importantly for a streaming music service, Primephonic used a royalty model. In this model, you were paid based on how long a song was played, rather than how many times you listened to it. Using the per-play model, a person listening to his 15-minute movement of a Beethoven symphony could generate as much revenue for an artist as someone listening to a 90-second pop song of his.
Apple hasn’t disclosed how artists will be paid, but the press release announcing the acquisition of Primephonic said detailed metadata for the service and “Primephonic’s best features” will be incorporated when Apple Music Classical launches. is shown to be
The Apple Music Classical app is iPhone-only for now, but an Android version is apparently coming “soon.” No word on what Apple plans for his iPad, macOS, or Windows. Windows only got the first version of the Apple Music app in preview earlier this year.
