News

This week Apple officially launched the much anticipated Apple Music Classical app on the iPhone, allowing ‌Apple Music‌ subscribers to download and access an app dedicated just to classical music. Let’s explore what it is.

The app is similarly designed to ‌Apple Music‌, but it is entirely dedicated to classical titles. The Browse section, for example, is broken down into Composers, Genres, Periods, Conductors, Orchestras, Soloists, Choirs, and Ensembles, making it easier to discover the specific classical content for which you are looking.

A Listen Now section offers up New Releases, Spatial Audio content, and other recommendations in various genres. 

Any downloaded songs are stored in a separate music library, not commingled into your Apple Music application library.  You will use the Apple Music app to download tracks, albums, and playlists that you've added to your Apple Music Classical library.

It’s still a bit confusing because Apple also says that "Recordings, works, and composers won't appear in the Apple Music app and can be accessed only in the Apple Music Classical app."

The Music Classical app should be familiar for existing ‌Apple Music‌ subscribers. Unfortunately, it is limited to the ‌iPhone‌ at the current time, with no Mac or iPad version available. It's also not available on CarPlay. We sure to hope this changes soon and anticipate that it will.

While the Apple Music Classical on iPhone will play music, it's really a search engine that lets users find tracks that Apple Music can't, and then add them to playlists in Classical as well as the normal Music app.

Apple Music Classical is available to any Apple Music subscribers of tier.

Look for updates to this app in the near future to better integrate it into Apple Music more and better handle downloads.

For now, enjoy what is close to being the largest catalog of Classical Music commercially available.