Apple Music will soon upgrade the streaming experience for fans of the classical music genre after acquiring a service called Primephonic. Plans to bolster classical music offerings in Apple Music will include a standalone app from Apple dedicated specifically to the genre.
Here’s the announcement from Apple:
Apple today announced it has acquired Primephonic, the renowned classical music streaming service that offers an outstanding listening experience with search and browse functionality optimized for classical, premium-quality audio, handpicked expert recommendations, and extensive contextual details on repertoire and recordings.
Apple plans to integrate “Primephonic playlists and exclusive audio content” into Apple Music. Subscribers will also find “better browsing and search capabilities by composer and by repertoire, detailed displays of classical music metadata, plus new features and benefits.”
For current subscribers of the $14.99/month service, Primephonic has published its own article describing what happens next for the now-defunct classical music service:
As a classical-only startup, we can not reach the majority of global classical listeners, especially those that listen to many other music genres as well. We therefore concluded that in order to achieve our mission, we need to partner with a leading streaming service that encompasses all music genres and also shares our love for classical music. Today, we are therefore thrilled to share a great step forward in our mission – Primephonic is joining Apple Music!
We are working on an amazing new classical music experience from Apple for early next year, but unfortunately, the Primephonic service will be taken offline starting September 7. You may continue to use it at no charge until then.
Please check your email for more details about your 6 month free trial on Apple Music, your refund and more.
Notably, Primephonic has already been removed from the App Store, and existing subscribers will lose access starting September 7. Apple plans to launch its own standalone music player dedicated to classical music next year, but existing Primephonic subscribers will have to rely on the current Apple Music experience until then:
Apple Music plans to launch a dedicated classical music app next year combining Primephonic’s classical user interface that fans have grown to love with more added features. In the meantime, current Primephonic subscribers will receive six months of Apple Music for free, providing access to hundreds of thousands of classical albums, all in Lossless and high-resolution audio, as well as hundreds of classical albums in Apple Music’s Spatial Audio, with new albums added regularly.
Long-time Apple Music subscribers may recall that Apple’s streaming music subscription service is based on another acquisition in 2014 when Beats Music joined the family and became the foundation for the current service. Primephonic launched some three years later in 2017.
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