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Apple Music launches standalone app for classical music

By Simon Cohen March 9, 2023

Classical music fans no longer have to wade through an endless list of promotions for the latest pop, hip-hop, and alternative artists to get to the music they love, thanks to the new Apple Music Classical App, a standalone app from Apple that strictly focuses on classical music. You can preorder the app now and it will be available for download on March 28.

Apple Music Classical is a standalone app for classical music fans. — Apple

To be clear, the app is not a new streaming service and it does not require a separate subscription. Anyone who already has an Apple Music subscription via Individual, Student, Family, or Apple One plans will be able to download and use the app, much the same way as you use the existing Apple Music app. Unfortunately, Apple Music Voice Plan members are not included.

The Classical app has been optimized to give you a way to access just the classical music portion of the Apple Music catalog.

Screenshots of the Apple Music app on an iOS device. — Apple

Apple says that it has the world’s largest classical music catalog with over 5 million tracks and works “from new releases to celebrated masterpieces,” with thousands of exclusive albums.

As part of the visual experience of the new app, exclusive artwork will be showcased, including a series of high-resolution digital portraits of many of the world’s greatest composers.

Within the app, you’ll be able to:

Search by composer, work, conductor, or even catalog number, and find specific recordings instantly
Access up to 192 kHz/24-bit Hi-Res Lossless versions of tracks
Access thousands of these recordings in spatial audio
See complete and accurate metadata to make sure you know exactly what work and which artist is playing
Read thousands of editorial notes including composer biographies, descriptions of key works, and more.

Currently, the Apple Music Classical App is available for preorder for iOS devices (no word yet on support for iPadOS or MacOS), but Apple says the Android version is coming soon.

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Contributing Editor, A/V

Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like…

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