by Jason Snell
Apple Music Classical arrives later this month
Nineteen months after Apple bought classic-music app Primephonic and promised a new dedicated app in 2022, and three months after the end of 2022, Apple is poised to finally deliver the app that classical music fans have been waiting for.
Apple Music Classical has been added to the iOS App Store, but the wait’s not quite over: it’s available for pre-order, with an expected arrival date of March 28.
According to Apple, the app will be available to Apple Music subscribers at no additional cost, will run on iOS 15.4 or later, supports Dolby Atmos and spatial audio, and will work anywhere Apple Music is available (except for China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan).
As I learned years ago from Macworld contributor Kirk McElhearn, classical music fans have some very specific needs that aren’t well served by the pop-music-oriented design of Apple Music (and all the way back to iTunes, for that matter). Hence the need for a dedicated app. (It’s unclear to me if a Mac app is in the works, however.)
I hope Apple has done right by those classical music fans. I guess we’ll find out at the end of the month.