Apple Music version 3.9.0 (beta) on Android has some wondering if Apple is planning to bring a symphony to your sound system.
APPLE could be about to launch a classical music streaming app after lines of intriguing code were spotted by 9to5Mac in the latest beta version of Apple Music for Android.
Last year, the tech giant acquired classical music app Primephonic to further enhance the streaming platform’s classical music competence.
Primephonic was then shut down and swallowed up by Apple not long after, with existing users told to use Apple Music while the company worked on its own version of the app, due to be launched in early 2022.
As that deadline approaches, the Apple Music beta features a string that reveals the name “Apple Classical,” and the forthcoming ability to open a compatible track directly in the optimized service – unlike Apple Music, which covers a broad range of genres.
<string name=”open_in_apple_classical”>Open in Apple Classical</string>
The string of code discovered by 9to5Mac
This appears to be the name for the upcoming Android app, but it could always change before launch as a beta is no guarantee of what the final version will look like.
As 9to5Mac reported, the code hints at possible future features, but that “Google may not ever ship these features, and our interpretation of what they are may be imperfect”.
It might not be too long before we find out whether these lines of code actually correspond to Apple’s classical music app. It’s rumoured that the next Apple event will take place on March 8, when it will present the iPhone SE 3, the iPad Air 5, and potentially a new Mac, so there could be an announcement then.
There is already a huge amount of classical music on Apple Music, but because one single piece of classical work can be recorded by hundreds of different orchestras and musicians, it becomes difficult to search for the exact recording you’re looking for.
There are also older classical works that are categorised in a different way to other genres. The Opus numbering system that allows individual compositions to be identified can appear quite confusing, and it’s thought that a new platform such as Apple Classical will make the complicated genre more accessible.