Apple Music Classical has made its long-awaited debut on the App Store, and for Apple Music subscribers, the app is an exciting new way to explore the world's largest catalog of classical music.
Apple Music Classical is currently exclusive to the iPhone, but the company says an Android app is "coming soon." If you subscribe to Apple Music (€10.99 / €10.99 / AU€12.99 per month). You can download the app now for free from the app store - opens in a new tab.
But should you download Apple Music Classical and how much should you use it? And why the heck did Apple create a separate app, instead of including all of this classic goodness in its existing Apple Music app?
We've answered all these questions and more in this guide to Apple's single app, which gives Apple Music a unique edge in its battle with Spotify and the major music streaming services.
Apple Music Classic release date and price
Apple Music Classical is available to download now in all countries where Apple Music is available. This includes the US, UK, and Australia, although countries like China, Japan, and South Korea are currently absent.
You need an Apple Music subscription to listen to Apple Music Classical and there is currently no subscription available. Right now it costs €10,99 / €10,99 / AU$12,99 per month.
Considering that Apple Music has over 100 million songs and Apple Musical Classical adds an additional 5 million tracks, it's excellent value for money, especially if you have varied tastes ranging from classical to college rock.
Apple Music Classic: how to download it
There are a few checkboxes before you can start streaming Apple Music Classical. First, you need an individual, student, or family subscription to Apple Music. Unfortunately, the cheapest Apple Voice plan (€4.99 / €4.99 / AU$5.99) doesn't include the new classic streaming service.
You may also need to update your iPhone software. While you don't need to be running the absolute latest version of iOS 16, you'll need a phone running iOS 15.4 or higher. This means any iPhone since the iPhone 6S, including the iPhone SE.
Got an Apple Music subscription and a relatively new iPhone? You can download Apple Music Classical from the App Store - opens in a new tab - now. Just sign in with the same ID you use for your Apple Music subscription and you're good to go.
Unfortunately, there's currently no iPad or Mac app for Apple Music Classical, which is a shame. But Apple said an Android app is "coming soon." We will update this page as soon as we know more about a date.
Apple Music Classic: what is it?
Apple Music Classical sounds like a simple concept: a spin-off of Apple Music where you can stream around five million orchestral tracks from all manner of composers, from Bach to Mozart. But its surprising depth, which builds on Apple's 2021 purchase of classical music app Primephonic, makes it suitable for all experience levels and shows why Apple decided to make it a separate app.
Apple calls the service "the world's largest catalog of classical music," but its real draw is the power of its search function. Since Classics has hundreds of recordings from different orchestras and conductors, traditional streaming apps can be difficult to navigate.
Apple Music Classical promises to be an improvement with the nuance of its Browse section, which lets you search by composer, period, genre, conductor, orchestra, soloist, ensemble, choir, instrument, or even work number or work nickname. . This makes it easy to highlight, for example, this particular movement by Massenet.
The app is also a fairly beginner-friendly introduction to the slightly intimidating world of classical music. Apple has created more than 700 reading lists and how-to guides, like The Story of Classical, that combine commentary with works and breakdowns of classical terminology. We'd love to see Apple do more for all genres of music in its own Music app, but it's definitely a nice feature here.
With exclusive artwork, including high-resolution portraits of composers from Bach to Vivaldi, Apple Music Classical clearly wants to be both a digital home for classical music fans (or newbie fans) and a place to stream music. But Apple, fortunately, hasn't forgotten about sound quality either.
Apple Music Classic: features and design
As you'd expect from an app that tries to recreate the sound of a live orchestra at home, though that's not entirely possible, Apple Music Classical promises impressive sound quality for a streaming service.
The app offers lossless audio quality up to 24-bit/192kHz across its entire catalogue, which is a godsend considering there are still no equivalent signals like Spotify HiFi (its quality offers lossless CD). However, the quality you ultimately get will depend on whether or not you're listening with wired or wireless headphones.
Part of the Apple Music Classical catalog is also available in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, which gets a little closer to that immersive 360-degree live experience. You can find these pieces in his "Now in spatial audio" section, which currently contains just over fifty works.
Again you will need headphones or speakers that can handle spatial audio to benefit from this. And it's also worth keeping in mind that on Apple wireless Bluetooth headphones (like the AirPods Max), you'll only be able to stream Apple Music Classical in lossy quality, because lossless audio isn't currently possible over Bluetooth on Apple. headphones.
Do you have wired headphones or speakerphone listening? You can enable lossless audio quality by going to the Settings menu on your iPhone and looking for the Music app. From there, navigate to Audio Quality and tap on "Lossless Audio" to turn it on. Keep in mind that this will use a lot more data than usual, which means you might also want to turn off cellular data for the Music app (which also controls the classic Apple Music settings).
The overall design of Apple Music Classical is unsurprisingly clean and simple, much like the Apple Music app. There's a refreshing lack of clutter compared to other music streaming apps like Spotify and the browse section is particularly powerful for classical music.
You can add albums or playlists to your Library section by tapping the "+" symbol at the top right of either. But strangely enough, you can't download these songs to Apple Music Classical for offline listening. Instead, you have to go to the standard Apple Music app, find them there, and then download them to your device.
Apple Music Classic: los contras
Apple Music Classical is definitely not perfect. For starters, there's currently no dedicated app for iPad, Mac, Apple TV, or CarPlay, which is strange. There is no Android app yet, although there will be one "soon".
This may change in the future, as Apple said that the current version of Apple Music Classical is "just the beginning." But that makes it a bit more limited than it could have been, even if AirPlay is a workaround for Apple TV owners.
There are also some other limitations. There's no "shuffle" option available for those who want a more radio-style experience like the standard Apple Music app offers. And in general, the design is set up for those who already know what piece of classical music they are looking for.
It is also not possible to download songs to Apple Music Classical for offline listening. But while Apple previously confirmed to us that there won't be an offline listening option in the app, there's an unexpected workaround: You can find tracks saved to your Apple Music Classical library in the Apple Music app and download them from there. Not ideal, but better than nothing.
Apple Music Classic: First verdict
We've been pretty impressed with Apple Music Classical so far. Streaming quality is good (especially when using wired headphones) and the catalog is rich and varied. The main advantage, however, is its powerful search function, which makes it easy to navigate classical music that, for example, on Spotify.
Too bad there aren't more apps available, especially for iPad and Mac. We hope that changes soon, as it will for Android fans. And the offline listening setup, which you have to do through the Apple Music app, is a bit of a hassle.
But for a first-generation offering, Apple Music Classical is a refined new experience for fans of the genre, and a unique differentiator for Apple Music versus Tidal, Amazon Music, and Spotify.