More Apple Music Classical references spotted in iOS beta
As Apple's self-imposed deadline to launch Apple Music Classical nears, more mentions have been found in the latest iOS beta.
Following Apple's acquisition -- and closing down -- of classical music service Primephonic, references to the service were spotted in Android beta software, and betas of iOS 15.15.
Now a Twitter user has shown screenshots from the latest iOS beta that include Apple Music Classical references.
There are few details to be gleaned from the code fragments, but they appear to be chiefly related to a classical music subscription. Nonetheless, it's the presence of any such code that is significant as it at least implies that Apple is readying the inclusion of Apple Music Classical within iOS.
When Apple bought the Primephonic company, it promised some details about the service, but specifically said that it would be launched by the end of 2022. That launch will also be of a separate Apple Music Classical app, which is to be based on the old Primephonic app.
Primephonic subscribers are to get six months of Apple Music for free. Within the classical app, Apple has said that browsing and searching for classical music will be improved.
Read on AppleInsider
Following Apple's acquisition -- and closing down -- of classical music service Primephonic, references to the service were spotted in Android beta software, and betas of iOS 15.15.
Now a Twitter user has shown screenshots from the latest iOS beta that include Apple Music Classical references.
Looks like Apple is setting up Apple Music Classical in the backend now pic.twitter.com/LoWW6mHQLT
-- Aaron (@aaronp613)
There are few details to be gleaned from the code fragments, but they appear to be chiefly related to a classical music subscription. Nonetheless, it's the presence of any such code that is significant as it at least implies that Apple is readying the inclusion of Apple Music Classical within iOS.
When Apple bought the Primephonic company, it promised some details about the service, but specifically said that it would be launched by the end of 2022. That launch will also be of a separate Apple Music Classical app, which is to be based on the old Primephonic app.
Primephonic subscribers are to get six months of Apple Music for free. Within the classical app, Apple has said that browsing and searching for classical music will be improved.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
That said classical is very different from other music. If you want to listen to Girl’s Just Wanna Have Fun, or Smoke on the Water, (yes I know I’m dating myself) there is really only one performance of it, one artist who did the version everyone knows. If you tell Siri to “Play The River” it would I expect grab the Springsteen album. On the other hand if you want to hear the Brandenburg Concertos, well there are hundreds of recordings and everyone has their personal favourite. Want to listen to La Boheme? The Met Version, or La Scala? Or maybe the version done in a studio by a group of singers just to make a perfect recording? Or maybe the Angel Records Highlights version that leaves out all of that annoying chatter between the arias? In this it shares a similarity with some Jazz, where dozens of people have recorded the standards.
So yes, finding a recording of Die Walkure is hard, (and if you find the one directed by Otto Klemperer my condolences). It’s hard to find the good ones in Classical. Much harder than in other genre. I suspect that’s why Apple is starting a separate service just for it. Regular AppleMusic just didn’t work. My hope is that this will allow more people, and younger people, to discover Classical.
On the bright side, classical listeners won’t be constantly told they would just love to listen to this culturally affirming example of hip hop.
The other big difference is that classical music often comes in long-form compositions, made up of several parts, or 'movements.' Beethoven't famous Fifth Symphony has four movements. They're like separate but related thematic songs, and they're supposed to come bundled together, in sequential order. Classical music listeners want to hear all four parts, in the correct order. They want to hear all three movements of a piano sonata. Music systems and playlists designed for pop don't care about that, and it grates on the nerves of classical music listeners when orphaned sections of compositions get cobbled together in random order. It's like reading single chapters from mystery novels in random order. Not satisfying at all.
So this new resource will be a welcome one, and really it's an unmet need that goes all the way back to physical record stores. Anywhere outside major metropolitan areas, the classical section of a record store (if there even was a classical section) would be a poorly stocked set of bins off in a corner, organized by a clerk who had no knowledge and less interest in the material there.
If Apple's classical music service is included at no extra cost with existing music subscriptions, it could actually create a real renaissance for the genre. It'll become available in a way that satisfies the aficionados, and also will allow the novice to explore and drill down in a meaningful way beyond the generic compilation albums that usually represent the beginning and end of most newbies' interaction with this type of music.
Apple's 'spatial audio' feature introduced last year has created an explosion of surround-sound music content. Making it available at no extra charge to anyone with an iPhone and an Apple Music subscription has finally accomplished what had never been achieved since the early 1970s introduction of quadrophonic sound. The need for specialized surround-sound physical media and specialized playback equipment to play it has always been a barrier to those formats ever taking off. Not enough people buy the gear to make creating the content profitable, so very little surround sound music content was created, and was usually expensive enough not many people would buy it. Apple fixed all that by making the gear you already have play spatial audio, and so lots of new material is mixed in surround, and scads of old albums are being remixed for the format. Apple Classical Music may do the same thing for classical music by bringing the format to consumers in a way that makes sense for the content. This is actually in Apple's DNA: they're often not the first to do a thing or make a thing, but they're quite often the first to do it right.
A more general topic here is the poor treatment of metadata by almost every streaming service. Sometimes it seems they don't know what a relational database is for. That's what Roon fixes so well.
Anyway, the biggest trick is going to be Siri's ability to understand, intuit and respond accurately to verbal commands seeking specific combinations of composers, performers, compositions and even specific performances of the above: Hey Siri, play the 1955 Glenn Gould recordings of the Goldberg Variations by Bach. To get that right, Siri has to find Glenn Gould, select the 1955 recordings but not the 1981 recordings, and then cue up a 32-track playlist in the right order. Mind you, the record label has released this music in a number of different iterations, including separate albums for the 1955 and 1981 versions and also a compilation that includes both. So this one-sentence command will require a fair amount of AI sophistication to give the listener the result they're after.