Hands-On With Apple's New Classical Music App

Apple today officially launched the much anticipated Apple Music Classical app on the iPhone, allowing ‌Apple Music‌ subscribers to download and access an app dedicated just to classical music. We went hands-on with the new app to give MacRumors readers a closer look.


Design wise, the app is similar to ‌Apple Music‌, but it is entirely dedicated to classical titles. The Browse section, for example, is broken down into Composers, Genres, Periods, Conductors, Orchestras, Soloists, Choirs, and Ensembles, making it easier to discover the specific classical content that you're looking for.

A Listen Now section offers up New Releases, Spatial Audio content, and other recommendations in various genres, plus there is a dedicated Library for aggregating saved content. A search function makes it simple to find something specific.

All in all, the app will be familiar to ‌Apple Music‌ subscribers, and it is in fact very simple. Unfortunately, it is limited to the ‌iPhone‌ at the current time, with no Mac or iPad version available. It's also not available on CarPlay.

Have you tried ‌Apple Music‌ Classical? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Popular Stories

iCloud General Feature Redux

iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage Received a New Perk This Year

Sunday June 1, 2025 9:26 am PDT by
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple introduced an additional perk for you this year, at no additional cost. The perk is the ability to create invitations in the Apple Invites app for the iPhone, which was released in the App Store in February. In the Apple Invites app, iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations for any occasion, such as birthday parties, graduations, baby...
carplay hero dashboard

iOS 26 to Upgrade CarPlay in Two Ways

Wednesday June 4, 2025 6:24 am PDT by
While the spotlight has been on CarPlay Ultra lately, the regular version of CarPlay is set to receive some enhancements alongside iOS 26. Apple will announce iOS 26 at WWDC 2025 next week, and the software update is expected to upgrade the CarPlay experience in at least two ways. The first iOS 26 beta should be seeded to developers shortly after Apple's keynote, and the update will...
iOS 18

What to Expect From iOS 18.6 as One of the Final Updates Before iOS 26

Monday June 2, 2025 12:33 pm PDT by
It has been three weeks as of today since Apple released iOS 18.5, and we are still waiting for the first iOS 18.6 beta to follow. Below, we outline everything we know about iOS 18.6 so far. Timing Apple's software engineers have been internally testing iOS 18.6 since late March, according to the MacRumors visitors logs. The first betas of iOS 13.6 through iOS 16.6 were all released...
iOS 26 Mock Rainbow Feature

iOS 26: All the New Features We Expect

Tuesday June 3, 2025 4:49 pm PDT by
The 2025 Worldwide Developers Conference is coming up quick, with less than a week to go before the big keynote event. We're sharing a series of rumor recaps this week, for those who want to get a sneak peek at some of the features expected in Apple's upcoming software updates. iOS 26 is definitely the OS that we've heard the most about, and rumors suggest that it's going to get a major...
sebastian de with living glass

Ex-Apple Designer Reveals 'Living Glass' iOS 26 Concepts

Wednesday June 4, 2025 4:17 am PDT by
Designer Sebastiaan de With has published an impressive preview of what Apple's rumored iOS redesign might look like, complete with detailed mockups and a design philosophy that he believes could reshape how users interact with their devices. With WWDC just days away, de With – co-founder of photography app maker Lux and former Apple designer – has created what he calls "Living Glass"...
macOS Tahoe Render

WWDC 2025: What to Expect From macOS 26 Tahoe

Monday June 2, 2025 4:17 pm PDT by
WWDC is less than a week away, and as we ramp up to the big announcement, we're going to share details on what we know about each operating system. We're starting with the next-generation version of macOS, which Apple is apparently going to call macOS Tahoe. Name Since the current version of macOS is macOS 15, it would normally be followed by macOS 16, but Apple is changing its naming...
WWDC 2025 Sleek Peek

Apple Shares New 'Sleek Peek' Teaser Ahead of WWDC 2025 Next Week

Monday June 2, 2025 8:22 am PDT by
WWDC 2025 is just one week away, with Apple's opening keynote scheduled to begin on Monday, June 9 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. Ahead of the annual developer conference, Apple updated its WWDC page today with a new "Sleek peek" tagline, which replaces the original "On the horizon" tagline that it used over the past few weeks. The graphic for WWDC 2025 has also been updated. It is now a...
iPhone 17 Air Pastel Feature

iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air ProMotion Rumors Disputed by Leaker

Tuesday June 3, 2025 3:16 am PDT by
A Chinese leaker with a mixed track record for accurate predictions has today disputed claims that the regular iPhone 17 and all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air will feature ProMotion displays. ProMotion has been limited to the Pro models since it debuted on the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro Max in 2021, but several sources have suggested that Apple will this year fit the 120Hz variable...

Top Rated Comments

nutmac Avatar
29 months ago
The app is incredible. The team did a great job with curation and normalizing the meta data. My current wishes are:

* Filter for Spatial Audio, Lossless, etc.
* Video
* Bring on the iPad and Mac versions!
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
29 months ago

dedicating an entirely diff app to one genre of music is dumb.
Not dumb at all.

If you were a regular listener to classical music you'd understand why this app is standalone and makes sense.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Phogro Avatar
29 months ago
As a person with limited Classical exposure, I'm enjoying "The Story of Classical" as a way to understand better what this genre is and why it needs its own app.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Vlad Soare Avatar
29 months ago

does not have a shuffle mode, for a strange reason.
Probably because it rarely (if ever) makes sense to listen to classical music in shuffle mode. I can't imagine listening to, say, Vivaldi's Four Seasons in completely random order. Or symphonies, concertos, sonatas, you name it - imagine listening to Eroica shuffled: first the funeral march, then the last movement, then the first, then the third. It would be quite awkward. :)
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
decypher44 Avatar
29 months ago
Also not available on tvOS. Booo!!!
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Vlad Soare Avatar
29 months ago

Sad but true.
Not necessarily sad. Many people have no interest in classical music, like they have no interest in gardening, or in hiking, or in 19th century literature, or in sports cars, or whatever. It's not like classical music were some kind of pinnacle of culture. It's just one of several kinds of music, neither intrinsically better nor worse than others. Some like it, some don't, and there's nothing wrong with that.
What's sad, however, is that so many who have no interest in - and indeed no knowledge of - classical music feel the need to have strong opinions in regard to the usefulness of a dedicated app.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)