Huge improvements but…..
This app has really improved. It is a joy to use visually, with a great choice of layouts for the Now Playing screen, and good options for library and favourites management. And now album booklets!! And gapless playback seems to have been fixed, at least on my iPad to a usb c connected DAC. I wish Airplay supported hi res though.
One problem persists though - if you need to offline music to listen to without a connection you need to go back to the regular app and miss out in the slick and enjoyable experience of this app. Also I’ve noticed the app downgrades the music quality if it detects even a slight degradation of the WiFi to the iPad, so the only way to avoid this is to download the music, and to to do that you need to keep switching to the regular music app. So I was spending all my time not using the classical app. Pity.
One problem persists though - if you need to offline music to listen to without a connection you need to go back to the regular app and miss out in the slick and enjoyable experience of this app. Also I’ve noticed the app downgrades the music quality if it detects even a slight degradation of the WiFi to the iPad, so the only way to avoid this is to download the music, and to to do that you need to keep switching to the regular music app. So I was spending all my time not using the classical app. Pity.
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Response from developer
We are happy to share that Apple Music Classical now also offers a dedicated app for iPad.
Very well done
I’ve been waiting a long time for this. It’s not perfect but hopefully it will get better. The addition of iPad is great but I’d really like to see it on Mac and tvOS. It also needs a download option. At the moment I have to save an album as a favourite and then exit the app, go into Apple Music and download it there. This is a bit clunky. In addition, the app does not recognize playlist folders like Apple Music. I have folders for various styles and playlists within those. All carefully set up but this just displays all playlists in a flat list with no hierarchy. Could you please change that. The addition of librettos would be amazing but I guess would be difficult to add (perhaps AI would enable this to be added in the future).
I sincerely hope this gets updated for the next OS release. Still waiting for Mac!
I sincerely hope this gets updated for the next OS release. Still waiting for Mac!
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Response from developer
We are happy to share that Apple Music Classical now also offers a dedicated app for iPad.
Accidentally deleting a playlist and not being able to restore it was my intro to this app
Apple Music Classical pulls any works of music and the playlists you have from your main Apple Music account. Great! I thought. How convenient! Except one didn’t seem to fit in what I wanted to curate as my classical music collection. So I deleted it. Bad move. When I went back to the main Apple Music app where this list was generated by me, it no longer was there. Because deleting it in the Classical music app deleted it in Apple Music. Even though in the Classical Music app there was only one piece of music that migrated. No matter, my entire list- the one I listen to the most- DOZENS and dozens of songs were gone. Should I remember it? I’m sure some will come back to me and I can slowly rebuilt. But not really.
If you google this problem, deleted playlists, you will find other frustrated people. It’s the stupidest, most unnecessary and probably easily fixable problem that apple just doesn’t care to address. That is the mark of terrible customer service. I really feel like canceling my subscription. I am that upset about this.
If you google this problem, deleted playlists, you will find other frustrated people. It’s the stupidest, most unnecessary and probably easily fixable problem that apple just doesn’t care to address. That is the mark of terrible customer service. I really feel like canceling my subscription. I am that upset about this.
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Love this App
I’ve just downloaded this app because I wanted to get a better understanding of classical music. For that, this app is perfect. The bite sized introductions to the eras of classical music are very well done and entertaining. Curated playlists of particular classical composers are easy to just switch on and enjoy. I’d definitely recommend if wanting to get into classical music.
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Misleading dates are infuriating
There is a very cynical practice of labelling very old recordings as having being ‘released’ in the last few years. It’s incredibly annoying going through endless albums that say ‘2015’ or something only to find out they’ve been ‘remastered’ from a 1952 recording. Massive waste of time. I would be rating this far higher if they cracked down on this practice as otherwise it’s quite good. The selection of music is fine, once you can find the more recent stuff, although the library seems to be consistently missing some of the more cutting edge recordings. Please just label things honestly and this app would be fine.
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Lovely idea, needs work in practice
Absolutely love the idea of this app as the classical music library has never really fit with the streaming service model, due to the endless numbers of ‘opuses’ and ‘works’. This is the first real attempt at trying to create an intuitive way to search for and listen to different recordings and compositions by a big player in the music industry, which is admirable but it doesn’t take long to quickly get lost in the endless menu dialogues, or where the app just freezes on you (I repeated the same action multiple times and every single time it crashed!).
That being said, PLEASE don’t give up on this app! It is such a good idea and just needs a bit of rethink in how it can be a truly intuitive way to navigate a huge collection of classical music. I’ve always thought that orchestral music wasn’t suited for MP3s, lossy compression because of the amount of information being lost and it 100% benefits from the lossless format! So many good ideas - just needs a bit more polish for basic functionality.
That being said, PLEASE don’t give up on this app! It is such a good idea and just needs a bit of rethink in how it can be a truly intuitive way to navigate a huge collection of classical music. I’ve always thought that orchestral music wasn’t suited for MP3s, lossy compression because of the amount of information being lost and it 100% benefits from the lossless format! So many good ideas - just needs a bit more polish for basic functionality.
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Belle découverte
J’aime la présentation et l’offre pour parcourir la musique.
Il serait agréable que les pièces mentionnées dans les biographies puissent être directement liées à leurs interprétations.
Le coup de coeur pour le compositeur Eric Whitacre n’est pas bon. C’est une pièce de P. Glass qui joue… C’est arrivé pour un autre artiste mais je ne souviens plus lequel.
Il manque des biographies importantes comme celles de Nadia et Lili Boulanger.
Une fonction “influences” ajoutée au compositeur serait intéressante, tout comme la fonction de liste intelligente, similaire à “Genius” qui n’existe malheureusement plus sur ITunes…
Il serait agréable que les pièces mentionnées dans les biographies puissent être directement liées à leurs interprétations.
Le coup de coeur pour le compositeur Eric Whitacre n’est pas bon. C’est une pièce de P. Glass qui joue… C’est arrivé pour un autre artiste mais je ne souviens plus lequel.
Il manque des biographies importantes comme celles de Nadia et Lili Boulanger.
Une fonction “influences” ajoutée au compositeur serait intéressante, tout comme la fonction de liste intelligente, similaire à “Genius” qui n’existe malheureusement plus sur ITunes…
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No idea why there are so many positive reviews
Most specific compositions are mislabeled. Terrible filter options in the music library. No shuffle play on tracks in your library. Glitchy to the point where it will play the wrong track when you click on it. Use over time causes your music to be unplayable until you restart the app. Can’t choose specific songs to download. The search is not super user-friendly as it is hard to find certain compositions by certain composers with certain performers. All in all, the app is in its newest state and I’m sure many of these issues will be fixed soon. One positive, however, is the pure amount of music that is offered. I have yet to try any curated playlists or use any of the advanced features but the app looks beautiful and seems high quality. That being said, I give it two stars cause I know it could be and will be better in the future.
Update: it’s been a while since this app was made and it’s an absolute joke. There’s more classical albums on “Apple Music” than in this app and EVERYTHING is mislabeled it’s insane. Please don’t waste your time and just use Apple Music instead to generate your classical music catalog
Update: it’s been a while since this app was made and it’s an absolute joke. There’s more classical albums on “Apple Music” than in this app and EVERYTHING is mislabeled it’s insane. Please don’t waste your time and just use Apple Music instead to generate your classical music catalog
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Great for browsing - lots of playback issues though
Great app built for browsing classical pieces, how they fit together and are compiled & performed. Many issues with the app regarding playback though. Playback stopping and starting or skipping to the next track midway through another, the now playing track either being wrong or showing the incorrect playback time (or not being able to navigate through a track) as well as the app crashing altogether.
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Pointless
I have some classical music downloaded to my phone from my own CD collection, but can’t find a way of listening to it with the classical app so it is pretty pointless. The regular music app works just as well if not better.
