A couple of years have passed since Apple acquired Primephonic, a company specializing in curated classical music made available to audiophiles through a subscription. Apple has since leveraged the acquisition as Apple Music Classical, a dedicated app independent of Apple Music. It is finally ready for its debut on Android, a privilege afforded to very few Apple apps.
Apple Music Classical came to iOS and iPadOS in March this year, and the new Android app seems to have most of the same features. You can enjoy over five million tracks with properly curated metadata, and some even have spatial audio head tracking support if you’re rocking compatible audio gear (via 9to5Mac). The app supports streaming Hi-Res Lossless audio in up to 24-bit/192 kHz, just as it does on iOS. You just need an existing Apple Music subscription to enjoy the classical tunes.
As with most subscription-style streaming services, Apple is promising Android users an ad-free experience. People on Apple Music’s individual, family, and student plans get access to the service free of charge, but those using the Siri-specific Apple Music Voice Plan cannot use Apple Music Classical.
When the new app’s Android debut was confirmed, we were fully expecting it to drop after around six months, but Apple surprised us with a two-month gap. Meanwhile, Apple hasn’t updated the App Store listing for the Classical app since its launch. CarPlay support and the Mac app aren’t ready, and the iPad app hasn’t been optimized yet.
While Apple is giving classical music its own app, Google is busy doing the exact opposite — effectively fusing podcasts with YouTube Music after removing Google Podcasts from Search results. Individual apps dedicated to types of music may be a challenge to maintain in the long term, but it does help avoid shuffle picking Beethoven after an Eminem track.