Apple Has Until the End of the Year to Launch Classical Music Streaming
Time is running out…
Last August, Apple announced that it had bought Primephonic, a service focused exclusively on classical music. A year later, nothing happened, and Apple Music is still ignoring it as successfully as before the acquisition.
Despite its initial promises, Apple is unlikely to make it to the end of the year. Perhaps they’re trying to shorten our wait with the Apple Music Sing feature, which should arrive by the end of the year with the iOS 16.2 update.
However, it’s a much different genre, singing along to popular songs rather than listening to classic artists. Not to completely criticize Apple Music for this. There’s plenty of classical music in there as well, but the search is complicated and tedious, and of course, the content isn’t as comprehensive as many would like either.
While you will find most of the new compositions, such as The New Four Seasons — Vivaldi Recomposed by Max Richter, each artist takes the Four Seasons differently, adding something of their own to give the result a completely different experience.
The problem is that Max Richter’s Four Seasons is not the same as anyone else’s. And that is what the new platform should address.
Time is running out
This isn’t information lifted from the fingertips because after buying Primephonic, Apple announced in a press release that it plans to launch a dedicated classical music app next year. But that next year is this year, which is already coming to an end.
The company specifically stated, “Apple Music plans to launch a dedicated classical music app next year that combines the classic Primephonic user interface that fans have come to love with additional added features.” But since then, all has been quiet, at least from the mouth of Apple.
The Primephonic platform said on its website that it is “working on an amazing new classical music experience with Apple for early next year.” But that start of the year was targeted for March 9, 2022, the day after Apple held an event to unveil the Mac Studio, Studio Display, fifth-generation iPad Air, and third-generation iPhone SE.
So all indications were that a new platform would be coming, but that didn’t happen. Primephonic was discontinued in September 2021, when its subscribers were given six months of free Apple Music as compensation.
This meant that until the end of February this year, previous subscribers could still use some music streaming service, which would have been prefaced by the introduction of the new one right after, in early March.
In February, a link was discovered in the beta version of the Apple Music app for Android in the code “Open in Apple Classical”. Then in May, similar links were revealed in the iOS 15.5 beta, including a “Shortcut to Apple Classical”. In late September, code was discovered in an XML file directly on Apple’s servers.
Better library management
Apple has said it will incorporate Primephonic’s best features, including “better browsing and search capabilities by composer and their repertoire” and “a detailed view of classical music metadata” when it’s quite possible the company needs more time to complete.
Primephonic also operated with a unique pay-per-second listening model instead of a monthly and virtually unlimited subscription model, so perhaps this has also messed with Apple’s head. So at this point, the arrival of Apple Music Classical, Apple Classical, or anything else with the classical music moniker by Apple is uncertain.
On the other hand, it would be sheer stupidity for it not to try to recoup the money spent somehow. He probably won’t make it to the end of the year, but it would certainly be a nice opener for the Spring Keynote.
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