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Apple Explains Why It Launched an iPhone App Dedicated to Classical Music

Very happy with it and I'm sure the app will evolve over time. I'm using a portable DAC to listen to Lossless, one very minor thing is that I can't see the bitrate from the app itself. But I do see it on the DAC so it's fine for me.

I also downloaded Lossless music to my iPhone just by adding it to my Library. Nice!
 
To be honest, I wish every streaming platform had support for more metadata.
Currently Spotify allows you to see the composer and lyricist - but only if you know where to look. I haven't found similar data anywhere in Apple Music.

But I wish there was a streaming platform with a native UI for entire credits sections which could include things like guest musicians (I don't mean featuring artists - I mean people who are just invited/hired to do a studio session and who don't necessarily have a career as a published musician), who designed and made the cover image, recording & post-production staff, equipment lists, a "thanks" section...
You know, things people used to put on record covers.

Most of that info is lost in digital distribution. Some labels include them in press releases. And Bandcamp allows for extensive credits sections but it's just text. Bandcamp also allows you to provide extra material like images and PDFs so you CAN publish almost anything as an extra, but it's just not the same as a dedicated UI.

The old Cover Flow view was a step into this direction and it could have been so much more but then streaming happened.
 
Great job on the app! I wish they would allow me to customize the main music app so I could only see the genres I’m interested in throughout.
 
Imagine how rich Mozart and Beethoven would be if they had just gotten 1% of all the money that was made and will be made with their music.
 
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I have around 50 classical ”song” in my Music app, I wonder if there is a way to transfer them to the Classical app, music match them somehow?

I could do it manuall, and just search for each and everyon, and will probably do that, just wanted to know if there is an automated function for it.
 
Mac47 said:
Needs an iPad app, too. It was kind of gross opening it on my iPad Pro without realizing that it was just the iPhone app.
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Yes, it was quite a shock this morning. Spent a minute or so trying to expand the window, but to no avail.
 
breather said:
I have around 50 classical ”song” in my Music app, I wonder if there is a way to transfer them to the Classical app, music match them somehow?

I could do it manuall, and just search for each and everyon, and will probably do that, just wanted to know if there is an automated function for it.
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On a related point, having a look at the library within the classical music app, it seems to have surfaced some of the music I already have, mostly very _obvious_ classical albums like classical hits, or Hayley westenra. It hasn't brought anything through that's classical crossover or new age etc. so I'm guessing it's based on how the music is tagged already?
 
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Did they explain why there’s no iPad or Mac app or is it just courage?
 
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I don't buy the Classical music is a different thing. It's just a metadata issue. But I guess a separate app was the quickest way for them to integrate the database from Primephonic's acquisition. I'd also love to browse music by a specific player, instrument, record label, sound engineer or whatever property regardless the style. Aren't classical music players sometimes playing in arrangements for pop music? Aren't there classical covers of pop music and viceversa? Even classical music composers did transcriptions from other composers to other instruments. How are soundtracks classified?

Smart playlists are awesome when there's good metadata. I hope that this is a start and metadata improvements are translated to the global Music app eventually.
 
Jonkil said:
Sad that Apple couldn’t have just rebranded their acquisition and named it i-phonic or apple-phonic or something and left a perfectly workable proper app alone instead of releasing this waste of screen space. Terrible.
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Remember Workflow? It is now what is called Shortcuts...
 
Spacewiz said:
Meh. Yet another Apple empty promise, this time to improve the experience of classical music lovers. Been done with the iHype for a long time now, and just rip lossless classical from the CDs I buy. Apple Music has been so broken for so long…
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So not tried but we have an opinion already?
 
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yannxou said:
I don't buy the Classical music is a different thing. It's just a metadata issue.
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The metadata is so different that it requires a very different data model. In pop music every piece is a single „song“ usually performed by one „artist“. In most cases several of such songs are grouped into an „album“.

In Classical music the main entity is the composition of which the composer is the most important. Then the piece consists of several „songs“ called movements. Several movements form the actual composition which is then a sonata, a symphony or whatever. Only then comes the performer which usually is also not a single artist. There are many recordings of the same composition by different performers. Very different to popular music.

It is the lack of keeping the movements together as a single piece which makes the current streaming models so annoying. You get a single movement from one piece followed by a movement from a different piece followed by another movement of yet another composition. The piece is all the movements not some excerpt. It is hard to search for a specific piece, like a Haydn symphony or anything that isn‘t some mainstay as Beethoven‘s fifth. Just tune in to something like Classic fm where they never play a complete piece with all movements.
 
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Hopefully this will help me find particular renditions of music by a particular orchestra recorded in certain year. Always had trouble finding the rendition I liked instead of automatically playing a more modern version by the same orchestra. We'll see. :rolleyes:
 
I really don't want to sound negative, because I really like the concept of the classical music app. However, I ALSO want to play the music through my dedicated higher-end NAD streaming amp with Dynaudio speakers directly and without the need to use airplay through my iPhone/iPad as an active, battery-consuming and instability-inducing 'middleman'. My NAD amp does SpotifyConnect/TidalConncect/Roon and many other streaming protocols, which are mostly a joy to use, but when it comes to Apple Music we're limited to airplay - simply because airplay is what Apple thinks best serves its costumers (which is one of the big Apple product mysteries to me).
 
zachz said:
So far it’s been great, I like the font too!

Although I listen to classical music a majority of the time on my Mac while studying or working so it’ll be nice to get a macOS app.

That being said, I would’ve preferred Apple put the effort into fixing the atrocious Music app that has not properly worked without many bugs for a few years now… oh well, I choose to stick with Apple Music so the fool here is me!
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Is the Mac app coming ? I would like to enjoy the app during work.
 
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