Apple has released a new app, Apple Music Classical, for Android users. The app is designed to make it easier for users to find classical music titles contained within the Apple Music catalogue. The app uses metadata to enable search options for composers, epochs, soloists, orchestras, and ensembles. The app offers many ready-made playlists to make it easier for users to get started with certain types of classical music. According to Apple, the app provides streaming access to over five million pieces of classical music, making it the world’s largest catalogue of classical music. However, the Android version currently lacks an offline function.
Streaming is possible as lossless audio with up to 24-bit/192 kHz. The Android app is available at no extra cost to existing Apple Music subscribers except for Apple Music Voice subscriptions. Apple is taking into account the huge market for Android smartphones even before adapting the app for the in-house device categories iPad and Mac. Special versions of the app for the two operating systems have not yet been announced.
Apple’s expansion into the service business has led to the company bringing corresponding apps to other platforms. However, Apple TV has not been available for Android smartphones, only for certain Android-based smart TVs. Apple took over the classical music provider Primephonic in 2021 to lay the foundation for the new classical music app. Apple Music itself was the result of a takeover when Apple paid around 3 billion US dollars to buy the headphone specialist, Beats.
