Apple Music Classical was born from Primephonic, which Apple acquired in 2021 with the intent of launching a classical music-focused app in 2022. The promise of Apple Music Classical is that it will be better at handling the complex metadata often associated with classical recordings, and the app will also have things like curated playlists and composer biographies to help people get more acquainted with the genre.
Apple says the app’s catalog houses more than 5 million tracks and that you can listen to music at up to 192 kHz/24 bit hi-res lossless. However, there are a few caveats with the app. Subscribers to the Apple Music Voice Plan can’t use Classical. And at launch, there won’t be a native iPad version and you won’t be able to download music to listen to offline.
I’m disappointed about the lack of offline downloads, but I’m still looking forward to digging into the app. Even though I have to be online to use it, Apple Music Classical still seems like it could be a good way to learn more about a genre I feel like I should be more versed in — though if I’m being honest, the first thing I’m going to do is look up renditions of Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro.”