Apple Music Classical is the latest place to seek solace, for music lovers across the world. Two weeks ago, Technowize reported that after being on the cards for quite long, the offshoot of Apple Music is finally on its way to arrive on March 28. And as expected, it had a blistering start and has already made it to the second position on the chart in the music category on the App Store.
With an average rating of 4.3, the all-new Apple Music Classical is likely to turn out to be a game-changer for Apple Music as its battle with Spotify becomes even more intense (intense music starts playing in the background). Meanwhile, the latter had a renovation of its UI recently to boost its user engagement and it follows the launch of the Apple Music Classical, something which can turn the equations upside down.
The new Spotify UI looks quite refreshing and is dubbed as the ‘biggest evolution yet’ by Spotify itself. It goes without saying that the duel between the two big guns of the app music scene — Spotify and Apple Music (along with Apple Music Classical), would be an interesting phenomenon to watch out for this year, so far as the tech world is concerned.
Let’s delve deeper with the story to tune in to the ‘ultimate classical music streaming experience’ from Apple.
It needs to be seen how the equation of the fierce rivalry between Apple Music and Spotify changes after Apple Music Classical comes into play. [Image Credit: Apple]
Apple Music Classical: It Feels Like You Are Inside the Opera House, In the Front Row
The Apple Music Classical happens to be a brand-new standalone music streaming app designed to deliver the unique listening experience that classical music lovers have been longing for. Apple, whose tagline reads ‘Think Different’, has decided to tap into the relatively niche classical music market which can pay huge dividends. For your information, in 2018 the revenue of classical music amounted to 145.9 million U.S. dollars only in North America and 135.8 million dollars in Europe, according to Statista.
Claimed to be the world’s largest classical music catalog with fully optimized search and the highest audio quality available, the Apple Music Classical can be enjoyed for free by the Apple Music subscribers. Classical music, which is regarded as one of the best use cases for spatial audio, offering recordings an enhanced feel of presence, will be available for a never-like-before listening experience, thanks to what can be termed as Apple Music’s ‘sister concern’.
Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats, expressed his thoughts on the company’s latest app — “We love music — that’s really what we’re all about — and classical music is foundational to music of all genres. Apple Music Classical is a dedicated app that is great for classical experts as well as anyone who is new to classical, with the largest classical music selection in the world, the very best search and browse capabilities, the most premium sound experience with Spatial Audio, and thousands of exclusive recordings.”
He went on to add further that there’s simply no match for this unique app and the experience will only get enhanced with the passage of time — “We believe this is the very best classical music streaming experience available anywhere, and for us, this is just the beginning.”
The Apple Music Classical comes with more than 5 million tracks and offers you a vast library that possesses almost everything — “from celebrated recordings to forgotten gems.” Reported to stream at up to 192 kHz/24 bit hi-res lossless, this dream music app offers “hundreds of curated playlists, thousands of exclusive albums, insightful composer biographies, deep-dive guides for many key works, intuitive browsing features, and much more.”
The catalog provides you the following options to choose from — Composers, Periods, Genres, Conductors, Orchestras, Soloists, Ensembles and Choirs. There is separate section called ‘Instruments’ where you can select from an array of choices — Piano, Organ, Harpsichord, Cello, Violin, Viola, Viola da Gamba, Guitar, Lute, Double Bass, Harp, Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone, Clarinet, Oboe, Flute, Bassoon, Recorder, Saxophone, Percussion, Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Countertenor, Tenor, Bass-Baritone.
Moreover, there are almost 700 playlists curated by the Editor to help you get started with the amazing world of classical music, in case you are new to this beautiful terrain. Hence, you are good to go to “get a significantly improved classical music experience”.
Now, let’s quickly go through the major talking points of this refreshingly-new Apple Music Classical —
- You can easily access Apple Music Classical courtesy of a standard Apple Music subscription.
- The app came to the iOS platform on March 28, 2023. It will be followed by the release of an Android version (however, the date for the latter has not been specified yet).
- During launch, it has only come live on the iPhones and there won’t be an iPad counterpart of the app.
- Though the app’s design is based on Apple Music, it’s coupled with a simplified UI that heavily relies on Apple’s New York font instead of SF Pro.
- Supports iOS 15.4 and newer.
- At launch, there won’t be any room for offline downloads.
- Will offer more than five million tracks.
- Huge metadata — covering all the major boxes like, opus number, movement, composer, arranger, conductor and other important details.
- Does away with the Radio tab and it needs to be seen if it will support classical Radio Stations from Apple Music.
- The Now Playing screen now has an all-white or all-black background, as opposed to Apple Music, which fetches a background from the currently playing track’s album artwork.
- Users can also read editorial notes about the composers along with the descriptions of their major works.
- For legendary composers, there will be high-resolution digitals portraits, inspired from the respective classical periods.
- You can now see the portraits of Chopin, Bach and Beethoven, which started featuring when the app went live on March 28.
- To add more spice to the excitement, Apple has introduced a new Twitter account for Apple Music Classical, named @appleclassical, which is solely dedicated ro rolling out exclusive news and updates about the app.
Apple Music [Classical] Vs Spotify
In 2021, the Cupertino-based tech giant went on to acquire Primephonic, the Amsterdam-based classical music company which came up with a dedicated music streaming service in 2017. That’s how the first seed of the Apple Music Classical was implanted. Now the battle between Apple Music (along with Apple Music Classical) and Spotify surely enters the next level, making it more interesting than ever.
The Swedish audio streaming and media services provider Spotify, which started its fairytale run way back in 2006, has more than 489 million monthly active users, of which a staggering 205 million happen to be paying subscribers (data as of December 2022). And courtesy of a recent app redesign, eyes to make the numbers grow manifold, by relying on an enhanced user engagement.
Meanwhile, Apple Music still falls behind Spotify, as it had only 88 million subscribers in 2022, which experienced an increase of about eight million from the previous year. However, it needs to be seen how the equation of the fierce rivalry between these two changes after Apple Music Classical comes into play. Don’t worry, we will keep a close tab on this and get back to you with exclusive updates on how it unfolds.
Stay tuned with us. We will reach out to you soon with more such top stories about apps and all you need to know from the world of tech.
