Apple wants to help friends of classical music with its own app in the future. The group has taken over the streaming provider Primephonic, which specializes in classical music, and will integrate it into its Apple Music offering, the company announced on Monday evening.
Better offer with better findability
By adding Primephonic, Apple Music subscribers – the streaming service costs 10 euros a month – should receive “a significantly improved experience of classical music”. In addition to special Primephonic playlists for styles and composers, this also includes “exclusive audio content”. In the coming months, users of Apple’s music service should be able to use “the best functions of Primephonic”, including “better browsing and search functions for composers and repertoire, detailed displays of metadata of classical music as well as new functions and other advantages”.
Old users get half a year free
Primephonic itself will be taken offline on September 7th and the functions will be integrated into Apple Music. New subscriptions can no longer be taken out. There will also be a special app later, “which combines the Primephonic user interface, which is loved by fans, with additional functions”. It is planned for “next year”. Anyone who has currently subscribed to Primephonic should be able to use Apple Music free of charge for six months. “This gives you access to hundreds of thousands of classic albums recorded in lossless and high-resolution audio, as well as hundreds of classic albums in Apple Music’s 3D audio format, to which new albums are regularly added,” the company said.
Apple Music has some catching up to do with classical music
Up until now, Apple Music had a mixed reputation among friends of classical music. The metadata, the search function and the sorting are not always ideal and make it difficult to find tracks or display music in the wrong order. With Primephonic, the group has now brought in a real specialist. Apple does not seem to be planning additional fees – just as it did not recently with the launch of Spatial Audio and Lossless Music.
(bsc)
