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Comment by mbo | Hacker News Reader

> There’s no separate subscription for Apple Music Classical. It’s included at no extra cost with all Apple Music subscriptions except the Apple Music Voice Plan.

Bit of a missed opportunity here to provide a cheaper subscription just for Classical. Apple could have captured Spotify users who would be willing to pay a small premium for a nicer classical UX, but would be unwilling to take out an additional full-priced music subscription. Inevitably some Classical only users would end up migrating entirely to Apple Music to amalgamate their subscription costs.

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I think if you really care about a great classical streaming experience, that probably outranks a small extra monthly fee. I sort of doubt the category of people who care about a few extra dollars a month yet really love classical music to the point of wanting a very tailored experience exists.

People who care deeply about classical music will use this even at the same or higher cost than Spotify's now-inferior product.

People who don't care at all about classical music won't use this at any price.

People who like classical sometimes but don't listen to it exclusively should be happy that neither costs extra, both are included in the normal price.

I'm not seeing any market opportunity for charging a lower amount for this service separately.

> People who care deeply about classical music will use this even at the same or higher cost than Spotify's now-inferior product

I care deeply about classical music. But I'm already in Spotify's ecosystem, and don't want to bother with the switching cost. I would absolutely pay an add-on for Classical only, but don't want to pay for the whole Apple Music bundle.

Switching cost is trivial with apps like SongShift. In any case, Apple want you whole not just bits and pieces. Before you know it you’ll upgrade to Apple One.

I used soundiiz to migrate from Spotify to YouTube music (since it’s included in YT premium). Cost 5$ and was painless.

I am a student with not a lot of money and I really love classical music. I don't have to pay for Spotify due to Spotify family. Also, I really don't like the cliché that classical music is mostly for the well-earning élite. Classical music is just great music. Totally agree with you. Like the idea of a seperate app; when I am streaming my favorite music on Spotify, it's sometimes weird to listen to some piece of contemporary music and then a classical piece.

If your family had Apple Music Family rather than Spotify Family, you would have this option for free.

That's right. But what I really like at Spotify is that I can start a track on my iPhone, which is connected to my music box, and then add tracks to the waiting list or change them from my iPad. I really miss this option in Apple Music.

While not exactly the same, your school (college?) may have access to the Naxos library, which may allow you to stream that for free (requiring login through your school library).

I am on a german university. Will see if that's possible, thanks.

Bit of a missed opportunity here to provide a cheaper subscription just for Classical.

I don't think the people this app is for are all that price-sensitive.

I look at Apple Music as a classical music subscription, with 90 million other tracks included for free.

Beyond pricing, what's their strategy here trying to unbundle music? Are they going to release a different music app for every genre? If it's just a classical app, does that mean I now have to use two apps to switch between music based on genre? What benefit is there other than slightly better UX which presumably could be bundled in an existing app.

Wildly different meta data and needs for search. With classical music, it's a standard use case to search music composed by X. For most other genres, no one ever searches for a composer. On the other hand, there will hundreds of performances of the same piece, and listeners will want to scroll though them, instead of just seeing the 1-3 most famous renditions of a song. Or you want songs from a specific conductor or with a specific solist. All of this makes classical music very distinct, while search pattern for most other genres are kind of similar.

> What benefit is there other than slightly better UX

The way people (like me) listen to classical music is different from the way they listen to other kinds of music. For example, I might want to listen to Beethoven's String Quartet No. 12. This has four movements, and I want the player to play from movement 1 through movement 4 once I touch the play button. This is very different from wanting to play (say) Price Tag by Jessie J which is one track.

Furthermore, the meta data standards for music do not work that well for classical music. It requires some thoughtful manipulation to present the meta data correctly for this genre. For example, if you search for Mozart's Don Giovanni on Apple Music, and you are looking for a particular track, you may see something like this:

"1. Mozart, Don Giovanni Act ....." "2. Mozart, Don Giovanni Act ....." "3. Mozart, Don Giovanni Act ....."

Now the "Track Title" meta data field for track 2 probably has something like this:

"2. Mozart, Don Giovanni Act 1: Notte e giorno faticar"

If the programmers of Apple Music had read the spec carefully, they would have learned that the part of the track title after the colon is the actual track title, so they should show that first.

There are other issues with the meta data, but I tried the Apple Classical music player last night, and it is good. Finally a music player that works for me, not against me.

I decided to check this out. I searched for "Don giovanni" and my first match was under "Works", telling me that "Don Giovanni" by W. A. Mozart (little pic of him), K. 527, is available in 1,182 tracks. Second match, amusingly, was "Don Juan" by "C. W. Gluck," Wq. 52, available in 17 tracks.

Choosing Don Giovanni, I get a link to see more by Wolgang Amadeus Mozart, and a detailed description of Don Giovanni, K. 527, KV527. There's an Editor's Choice recording by Teodor Currentzis from 2016 (79 tracks, 2 hr 50 min), or five (with See All) Popular Recordings from 1960, 1986, 1991, 1960 again, and 1966, ranging from 2 hr 38 min (Herbert von Karajan, Vienna Philharmonic) to 3 hr (Philharmonia Orchestra). I'll choose the Editor's Choice.

Album art up top, I see (in dim gray) "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart," (in large white type) "Don Giovanni, K. 527," and (in gray, but larger than the composer) "Teodor Currentzis," along with tiny type tell me that this was released in 2016 and is in Hi-Res Lossless. Then a large Play button, no Shuffle button as the normal Music app has.

The tracks are "Ouvertura" (5:12), Notte e giorno faticar (No. 1, Introduzione: Leporello) (1:30), Non sperar... you know what? You get the idea. The metadata is presented perfectly.

Last night I was listening to Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 by the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle conducting, and it was presented perfectly as well.[0] And it sounded wonderful!

0. https://i.imgur.com/XEZn2My.jpg

> The way people (like me) listen to classical music is different from the way they listen to other kinds of music. For example, I might want to listen to Beethoven's String Quartet No. 12. This has four movements, and I want the player to play from movement 1 through movement 4 once I touch the play button. This is very different from wanting to play (say) Price Tag by Jessie J which is one track.

How is this any different from listening to an album or any other logical grouping of tracks with an order?

It's more than a track but less than an album. If I just want to play Vivaldi's "Summer" that's typically done as 3 tracks for the 1 song. But the album it is on will almost always be the full 4 seasons suite, consisting of 4 songs / 12 movements (tracks). I can also see all the hundreds of different recordings of just those 3 movements in Summer.

Sure you could just go to the album and play track 4, and pause when track 6 finishes. But this makes that a little easier to play and easier to add to playlists and such.

There's also all the other metadata differences. Maybe I really like this composer, but apple music has it listed under the performing orchestra. Maybe I really like this conductor. This breaks all those out into different options.

There may be several layers of grouping, particularly for opera. There are multiple acts per opera, multiple scenes per act, and there may be multiple songs per scene. If you try and list these as a single "album" you end up with abominations like my favorite recording of Die Walküre with 53 tracks. They try and stick everything in the track name, but on mobile this sometimes hides important information behind the "...".

You can still listen to classical in the regular music app, all of these tracks and albums are in the main app. But if you find a recording you really like and want to check out more stuff by that composer or the conductor, or the performers... Well conventional streaming app UI and search kind of sucks for that.

For example one of my most played artists on Apple music is "Various Artists" ;p

Missed opportunity....

Cheaper...

You know we're talking about Apple right?

In all seriousness, they don't like creating multiple SKUs for things. For simplicity and user friendliness sake.

It got me to abandon Spotify entirely and switch over to Apple Music. I’ve become more and more discontented with Spotify’s in-app experience and this was the last little nudge I needed apparently.

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