After iTunes failed to save classical music, Apple Music Classical seems an oddly clumsy point of entry, offering some good features but falling short of rivals
As classical listeners shift to streaming, Apple's bespoke app falls short of its smaller-scale competitors. Twitter: @ajdoug , @artsjournalnews , @ionarts , and @scurve Twitter: Douglas McLennan / @ajdoug : Alex Ross @NewYorker takes @Apple's new(ish) classical music app for a spin and comes away cranky. Best line is the best: “No matter what medium you choose, the market value of recorded music has been marked down to almost nothing.” https://www.newyorker.com/... @artsjournalnews : Alex Ross @NewYorker is cranky about @Apple's new classical music app. Better than the mishmash of Spotify, but it warps the culture of classical music in ways that distort. https://www.newyorker.com/... Charles T. Downey / @ionarts : Alex Ross is the current front-runner for best parenthetical line of 2023: “(This being the tech sector, everything is stupidly named.)” https://www.newyorker.com/... Soumya Sarkar / @scurve : Having sampled Apple Classical, I'd still say nothing beats Idagio. Alex Ross agrees https://www.newyorker.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's classical push has been years in the making: it acquired Primephonic in 2021, promising a dedicated app, then launched one in March 2023 with 5M+ tracks, with the Wall Journal crediting Primephonic-built metadata for fixing classical's chronic search and discovery problem. The backdrop is a decade-old structural issue — streaming platforms' metadata schemes and algorithms favor pop, which is how iTunes lost classical's prominence in the first transition.
First-order effects
- Alex Ross's New Yorker critique lands on a product Apple positioned as the fix: the app's Primephonic-derived search and discovery work, but the overall experience reads as clumsy and still trails specialist rival Idagio.
Second-order effects
- Idagio and other niche classical services get the argument they need against bundling — Apple's scale and Primephonic's technology did not produce a best-in-class experience, keeping room for specialists to charge for curation the giants fumble.
Third-order effects
- The recurring pattern — from the 2015 Apple Music review that found polish lacking next to Spotify to today — suggests generalist platforms keep absorbing genre-specific catalog without absorbing genre-specific craft, leaving specialist apps structurally durable in classical.
The trend: As classical listening completes its move to streaming, generalist platforms keep buying their way into the genre while specialist services retain the advantage on experience, not catalog.