YouTube is revamping the Remix feature on its ever popular Shorts by allowing users to integrate their favorite music videos into content.
This update consists of four tools: Sound, Collab, Green Screen, and Cut. The first one lets you take a track from a video for use as background audio. Collab places a Short next to an artist’s content so you can dance alongside it or copy the choreography itself. Green Screen, as the name suggests, allows users to turn a music video into the background of a Short. Then there’s Cut, which gives creators the ability to remove a five-second portion of the original source to add to their own content and repeat as often as they like.
It’s important to mention that none of these are brand new to the platform as they were actually introduced years prior. Green Screen, for instance, hit the scene back in 2022 although it was only available on non-music videos.
Remixing
The company is rolling out the remix upgrade to all users, as confirmed by 9To5Google, but it’s releasing it incrementally. On our Android, we only received a part of the update as most of the tools are missing. Either way, implementing one of the remix features is easy to do. The steps are exactly the same across the board with the only difference being the option you choose.
To start, find the music video you want to use on the mobile app and tap the Remix button. It’ll be found in the description carousel. Next, select the remix tool. At the time of this writing, we only have access to Sound so that’ll be the one we’ll use.
(Image credit: Future)
You will then be taken to the YouTube Shorts editing page where you highlight the 15-second portion you want to use in the video. Once everything’s sorted out, you’re free to record the Short with the music playing in the back.
Analysis: A leg over the competition
The Remix feature’s expansion comes at a very interesting time. Rival TikTok recently lost access to the vast music catalog owned by Universal Music Group (UMG), meaning the platform can no longer host tracks by artists represented by the record label. This includes megastars like Taylor Swift and Drake. TikTok videos with “UMG-owned music” will be permanently muted although users can replace them with songs from other sources.
The breakup between UMG and TikTok was the result of contract negotiations falling through. Apparently, the social media platform was trying to “bully” the record label into accepting a bad deal that wouldn’t have adequately protected artists from generative AI and online harassment.
YouTube, on the other hand, was more cooperative. The company announced last August they were working with UMG to ensure “artists and right holders would be properly compensated for AI music.” So creators on YouTube are safe to take whatever songs they want from the label – for now. It's possible future negotiations between these two entities will turn sour down the line.
If you're planning on making YouTube Shorts, you'll need a smartphone with a good camera. Be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best iPhone for 2024 if you need some recommendations.
Apple has just launched Year in Review, a Spotify Wrapped-style round-up for its Books app, where you’ll be able to see personalized stats covering all the books you read in the app over the past year. If you’re curious about who your most-read author is and how long you spent leafing through literature in 2023, you’ll want to take a look.
You’ll need to open the Books app and select the Read Now tab in the bottom-left corner, then find the 'Your Year in Review' card under the Top Picks header. Tap that and you’ll find a bunch of fascinating facts about your reading habits from the last 12 months. Note that you’ll need to have marked at least three books as completed to get your reading summary.
For example, Apple has created six ‘reader types’ that are defined by the way you read or listen to literature. These types include 'The Completionist' for readers who consume multiple books in a series, and 'The Contemporary' for people who love trending titles.
Apple has also published several lists of the most-read books across all Books users – Spare by Prince Harry took the top spot for a non-fiction title, while Only the Dead by Jack Carr was the top fiction audiobook. The company did something similar for its Podcasts app, where you can see all the top-ranked shows among listeners.
Better than Apple Music Replay
(Image credit: Apple)
Apple has put an emphasis on sharing this year, with book cover collages, graphs and statistics to send to your friends. All of this reading info is contained within Apple’s Books app, which makes it easy to catch up with your year-end review in between reading a novel or listening to an audiobook.
That makes it very different from Apple Music Replay. This is Apple Music’s take on Spotify Wrapped and, like Books’ Year in Review, gives you a deep dive into your music tastes in 2023.
The difference, though, is that Apple Music Replay is hosted on Apple’s website, not in the Apple Music app. You can still see all the same stats and figures as you’d expect, but there’s an extra degree of friction in the process. Compare that to Spotify, where its Wrapped round-up is right there at your fingertips in the app.
Why Apple built the Year in Review into its Books app but still refrains from making Apple Music Replay an app-based feature is a mystery. Regardless, head over to Apple’s Books app if you want to get the lowdown on your reading habits in 2023.
YouTube is apparently working on a new AI tool that could give content creators the ability to produce songs using the voices of famous singers and musicians.
According to a recent Bloomberg report, the platform has approached several record labels with this technology with negotiations still ongoing. YouTube is trying to obtain rights to use certain songs to train the AI while also trying not to step on any land mines that would lead to them getting sued to high heaven. We’re already seeing a similar situation happen with OpenAI as it’s currently being sued by 17 authors, including A Song of Ice and Fire creator George R.R. Martin, who all allege ChatGPT is illegally using their work. Bloomberg states musicians and labels want to maintain control over their work so developers aren’t using it “to train models without permission or compensation.”
Originally, a beta of this tech was supposed to be shown off during the Made On YouTube event last month. Billboard states in their report the beta would have had a “select pool of artists [give] permission to” certain creators to use their likeness on the platform. Eventually, it would officially launch as a feature where everybody can try using the voices of consenting artists.
Mixed response
The response from the music industry at large has been mixed. Bloomberg claims “companies have been receptive” agreeing to work with YouTube on this project. However, Billboard states record executives have had a tough time finding artists willing to participate. Some acts feel anxious about putting their voices into “the hands of unknown creators who could use them to make statements or sing lyrics” that they don’t agree with.
YouTube is trying to position itself as everybody’s best friend – as a partner to help the music industry figure this whole thing out. However, the air is gloomy. The industry sees generative AI as an unstoppable force, but it’s not an immovable object. The technology is an inevitability that they’ll have to deal with or they risk getting left behind.
Ray of positivity
There’s another snag in all this regarding publishing. Making music isn’t a one-person show as there are entire teams involved in production. To solve this, a Billboard source says YouTube will probably give labels one big licensing fee that they have to “figure out how to divide among” songwriters.
Despite the dour attitude, there is some positivity. Billboard claims rights holders are engaging in “good faith to get a deal done” amicably. A few artists do “recognize these models could open new avenues for creative expression.” Record executives may be less keen as another Billboard source states AI can put “companies at a disadvantage”.
We’ll just have to wait and see what comes from all this. Again, YouTube’s new model could help people explore their creative side assuming deals are made fairly.
Duolingo Music, as it’s called, will teach you the basics of playing music through the help of a digital keyboard on your iPhone. You don’t need to own an instrument. The lessons teach the names of each individual note and where they’re “located on a piano”. From there, Duolingo will show you how to read music and then “translate what you or hear” into songs. It'll eventually all coalesce into you learning how to play a full song. The courses will even take the time to “train your ear” so you can distinguish specific notes and tell whether they’re high-pitched or low.
As you can see, these classes get pretty involved. The primary goal of Duolingo Music is to establish a good foundation for students from which they can grow into more experienced musicians.
Back to School
We asked Karen Chow, the Teaching/Curriculum Expert at Duolingo who created the courses, what was the thought process behind everything. She told us the company “wanted to focus on teaching music literacy in a fun and engaging way.” Chow points out that other “foundations” teach music in a really “boring, dry fashion” so they aimed to do the opposite.
At the beginning of development, Duolingo identified the major tenets for their classes from the obvious, like playing instruments, to ear training. Once it narrowed things down, the company created lessons based on those tents
Duolingo states there are “hundreds of bite-sized lessons” available with many “interactive exercises”. These aim to teach music incrementally and not overload students with a flood of information. Some of the exercises include completing a music sequence and pairing up notes to audio played on a piano. Duolingo states it believes interactivity is vital to learning as it keeps people focused and engaged. All this content is shown in the platform’s signature brightly colored, bubbly UI.
(Image credit: Duolingo)
In addition to the music classes, Duolingo Math is getting an update where users can learn “real-world math skills from calculating tips to identifying patterns”. The latter, according to a company representative, involves helping people understand the logic behind math. Plus, there will be courses to “sharpen [your] mental math” abilities, allowing you to calculate in your head without needing to whip out the calculator app.
Availability
Duolingo Music will be available exclusively to “iOS devices in English and Spanish” later this autumn. Users will receive in-app notifications letting them know the update is ready for download. There are plans to expand Duolingo Music to Android users and other languages, too. However, the representative couldn't give us an exact date when this second patch will roll out. Hopefully, it's very soon.
Stability AI is taking its generative AI tech into the world of music as the developer has launched a new text-to-audio engine called Stable Audio.
Similar to the Stable Diffusion model, Stable Audio can create short sound bites based on a simple text prompt. The company explains in its announcement post that the AI was trained on content from the online music library AudioSparx. It even claims the model is capable of creating “high-quality, 44.1 kHz music for commercial use”. To put that number into perspective, 44.1 kHz is considered to be CD quality audio. So it’s pretty good but not the greatest.
(Image credit: Stability AI)
A free version of Stable Audio is currently available to the public where you’re allowed to generate and download 20 individual tracks a month. Each sound bite has a 45 second runtime so they won’t be very long.
Prompting music
The text prompts you enter can be simple inputs. Listening to the samples provided by Stability AI, “Car Passing By” sounds exactly as the title suggests – a car driving by in the distance although it is a little muffled. Conversely, you can also stack on details. One particular sample has a prompt involving Ambient Techno, an 808 drum machine, claps, a synthesizer, the word “ethereal”, 122 BPM, and a “Scandinavian Forest” (whatever that means). The result of this word combination is an ambient lo-fi hip-hop beat.
We took Stable Audio out for a quick spin. We were able to enter one prompt asking the AI to create a fast-paced garage rock song from the early 2000s and it sort of accomplished the goal. The generated track matched the style although it sounded really messy.
(Image credit: Future)
Unfortunately, we couldn’t go any further besides the single input. At the time of this writing, Stable Audio is seeing a huge influx of traffic from people rushing in to try out the model. The developer recommends trying again later or the next day if you’re met with nothing but a blank screen.
There is a catch with the free version – it’s for non-commercial use only. If you want to use the content commercially, then you’ll have to purchase the $ 12 Stable Audio Professional monthly plan. It also offers 500 track generations a month, each with a duration of up to 90 seconds. There’s an Enterprise plan too for custom audio duration and monthly generations. You will, however, have to contact Stability AI first to set up a plan.
Imperfect tool
Do be aware the technology isn’t perfect. The content sounds fine for the most part, however certain aspects will seem off. The mix in that Ambient Techno song mentioned earlier isn’t very good in our opinion. It was like the bass and synthesizer are fighting over what will be the dominant sound, resulting in just noise. Additionally, it doesn’t appear the AI can do vocals. It only does instrumentals.
Stable Audio is interesting for sure, but not something that should be totally relied on. We should note the company is asking for feedback from users on how to improve the AI. A contact email can found on the official announcement page.
If you plan on utilizing this tech for your own purpose, we recommend checking TechRadar’s list of the best audio editors for 2023 to fix any flaw you might come across.
As predicted by leaks Duolingo, the app synonymous with language learning, is expanding its portfolio into a new discipline with Duolingo Music. When it launches next month Duolingo will also be rolling out its Maths lessons (which have been in beta for around a year) to the main app, so you’ll be able to develop your math, music, and language skills all in one place.
According to the announcement trailer and press release we’ve been sent, the new digital piano experience will help develop your skills across “hundreds of interactive lessons” so you can find out how to perform “over 200 familiar tunes”. Based on what we’ve seen you’ll pick up music theory skills, as well as learn how to play tunes on an in-app virtual keyboard.
Best all, just like the existing Duolingo language courses (of which there are over 40), you’ll be able to access the music and math teaching for free. Duolingo hasn’t confirmed this with us yet, but we expect the new experiences will be ad-supported just like the existing language lessons unless you pay for Super Duolingo – we’ve also asked if this premium subscription will be going up in price because of the math and music additions.
The new music course will launch on iOS devices on October 11 and will be available in both English and Spanish. We’ve been told by a Duolingo representative that other platforms and languages will be supported “soon” but there are no firm dates yet – hopefully we’ll learn more at Duocon which also takes place on October 11.
Not leaving my home screen soon
Duolingo has been a permanent resident of my home screen for the past few months with my lesson streak currently over 110 days long. Ahead of a holiday to Belgium it was one of the language apps I used to develop my French skills, and (in an attempt to actualize my hopes of a holiday there) I’ve pivoted to learning Japanese since returning home.
The Duolingo widget is amazing (Image credit: Duolingo / Future )
The gamified courses (and the very emotive Duo widget I have set up for the app that shows the bird morphing from determined to sad to filled with the rage of 1,000 suns as the end of the day draws near and I haven’t completed a lesson) have kept me coming back for more – striking a good balance between engaging and informative. With these new music lessons on the way too, the app might have just further cemented itself to its spot on my home screen.
That said, I’m a little skeptical of the virtual keyboard experience. I’m worried it’ll be a little too small on my phone, and that playing it wouldn’t translate all that well to playing an actual piano. Given its success with language lessons, I'm hopeful the music experience will be solid too, but I'll have to hold off judgment until I’ve tried it out for myself – unfortunately, as a Google Pixel 6 user I might be left waiting a while for the Android release.
YouTube Music is implementing a Samples tab on mobile in an effort to introduce new artists to potential fans via “short-form video segments”. Basically, it’s TikTok.
The announcement states Samples will have their home in the bottom navigation bar in between Home and Explore. Selecting it launches the personalized feed where the algorithm will display “the latest release from an up-and-coming artist or a deep cut from a legacy [musician]” the website thinks you would enjoy. Each track will be accompanied by a 30-second video clip. Swiping up on your phone screen, as you probably guess, skips to the next song.
On the surface, Samples sounds similar to the Supermix and Discover playlists already present on YouTube Music. In a recent Engadget report, YouTube Music product manager Gregor Dodson claims the algorithm for Samples is different. Apparently, the new feature is a mix between Supermix and Discover, highlighting musicians you may know while also throwing in clips you might not have seen before.
Right now, you may be rolling your eyes at the fact that yet another popular social media app is copying TikTok’s endless feed. However, considering YouTube Shorts have proven to be very popular with its user base, plus the near-infinite amount of songs on the platform, adding the same feature to YouTube Music just makes a lot of sense.
Music demo
We managed to get our hands on Samples, and we have to admit, it’s pretty cool. It’s fun to see music videos you may not normally watch to then discover an awesome band you never heard of before. Be aware each snippet will loop endlessly. They won’t change automatically. To watch the next entry, you’ll have to manually swipe up on the screen.
On the side, you’ll have a series of buttons for liking songs, adding them to a playlist, sharing your favorites with friends, or using them in a YouTube Short. Tapping the three dots on the bottom right opens a menu leading to an extra set of tools. As you can see in the image below, users will be able to download songs (assuming you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber) or check out the musician’s profile.
(Image credit: Future)
Available now
If it wasn’t already clear, Samples is a free addition. You don’t need to subscribe to the Premium plan. Just make sure you have the latest version of YouTube Music on your mobile device. It’s currently rolling out to all users across the globe so keep an eye out for the patch when it arrives.
There are plans to expand the tech to other parts of the platform. Details for future expansions are unknown at the time of this writing.
Melding music with an infinite feed seems like a growing trend. Spotify implemented similar tech when it redesigned its mobile app. And TikTok is going a different route by preparing its own music streaming service. To be honest, we're a little curious to see how long it’ll be until we see Tidal begin supporting a scrolling feed.
The hills are alive with the sound of AI-generated music as Meta launches its new language learning model (LLM): the aptly named MusicGen.
Developed by the company’s internal Audiocraft team, MusicGen is like a musical version of ChatGPT. You enter a brief text description of the type of music you want to hear, click Generate, and in a short amount of time, the AI creates a 12-second long track according to your instructions. For example, someone can tell MusicGen to generate a “lofi slow BPM electro chill [song] with organic samples” and sure enough, the audio sounds like something you’d hear on YouTube’s Lofi Girl radio.
It is possible to “steer” MusicGen by uploading your own song so the AI has a better sense of structure. One of the developers for the LLM, Felix Kreuk, posted some samples of what this sounds like on his Twitter profile. As an example, MusicGen can take Sebastian Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor then add some drum beats and synths straight out of the 1980s to produce a more upbeat version of the piece.
We present MusicGen: A simple and controllable music generation model. MusicGen can be prompted by both text and melody. We release code (MIT) and models (CC-BY NC) for open research, reproducibility, and for the music community: https://t.co/OkYjL4xDN7 pic.twitter.com/h1l4LGzYgfJune 9, 2023
See more
Availability
MusicGen is currently available to the public on Meta’s Hugging Face website for everybody to try out. Do be aware that, unlike Google's own AI music generator MusicLM, Meta's model can't do vocals, only instrumentals. This is probably for the best as MusicLM vocals sound a lot like Simlish. No one will be able to understand a single thing.
To the musicians out there, you don’t have to worry about losing your careers. The AI is decent at making simple, short melodies, but not much else. In our opinion, the quality isn’t on the same level as something made with human ingenuity. Some of the songs can get pretty repetitive as MusicGen cycles through the same progressions multiple times. This tool can be useful for creating plain background audio for videos or presentations, but nothing truly engaging. The next pop hit won’t be AI-generated – at least not yet.
Act fast
If you are interested in trying out MusicGen, we recommend acting fast. First of all, the Hugging Face website is unstable. We had a ton of AI-generated songs ready to share. However, the web page crashed while working on this piece severing our connection to the tracks. We suspect the dead links were caused by sudden high user traffic. Hopefully, by the time you read this, Hugging Face is working properly.
The second reason is a more litigious one. On the official GitHub page, Meta states its team used 10,000 “high-quality [licensed] music tracks” plus royalty-free songs from Shutterstock and Pond5. Ever since the generative AI craze took off earlier this year, artists have begun to sue developers and platforms alike over “illegal use of copyrighted works.” Meta might soon find itself in the crosshairs of some crossed musicians. Even if it doesn’t get sued over using licensed music to train the LLM, record companies aren’t afraid to flex their industry muscle to shut down this type of content.
In just two months after its iOS debut, Apple Music Classical is now available for download on Android smartphones via the Google Play Store.
From the looks of it, it's pretty much the same thing as the iPhone version. You still have access to over five million classical ad-free tracks in “up to 192 kHz/24 bit Hi-Res Lossless” audio. There’s also thousands of recordings supporting spatial audio, the same specialized search engine to help users find music by composer or work (among other criteria), and the over 700 expertly curated playlists. Needless to say, the quality is still there. Apple isn’t holding back in delivering a great experience on Android.
What’s funny is the Android app has launched before Apple Music Classical released for iPads and Macs, but that’s probably because of what the service used to be several years ago. You see, back in 2021, the tech giant purchased classical music streaming platform Primephonicwhich was available on both Android and iOS.It shut down a few weeks later only for the streaming service to come back two years after as Apple Music Classical. So, in a roundabout way, you could say Primephonic is back on Android – just with a new identity. An optimized version for other Apple hardware has yet to be announced although it's probably just a matter of time.
Requirements
You will, of course, need a subscription to Apple Music to gain access, and that can be either the Individual, Student, Family, or Apple One plan. Although not mentioned in the official listing, Apple Music Voice will probably not be supported since it requires users to have a Siri-compatible device like a HomePod. We should also mention the Android version is not available in China, Japan, Korea, Russia, and Taiwan, just like on iOS. People there will have to make do with the standard Apple Music platform.
Other online reports claim devices must be running Android 9 or later in order to support the app. If this is true, it means Apple Music Classical won't be exclusive to people running the latest patch, and it can be downloaded on phones running nearly five-year-old software, greatly increasing its availability. For comparison, iPhones must have iOS 15.4, which launched back in March 2022, before users can access Apple Music Classical.
We reached out to Google asking for clarification on the requirements for the platform and we even asked Apple itself about when people can expect to see the app on iPad or Mac. This story will be updated if we hear from either company at a later time.
Apple Music Classical has made its long-awaited debut in the App Store – and for Apple Music subscribers, the app is an exciting new way to explore the world's biggest classical music catalog.
Right now, Apple Music Classical is exclusive to the iPhone, but the company says an Android app is “coming soon”. If you're an Apple Music subscriber ($ 10.99 / £10.99 / AU$ 12.99 a month). you can download the app right now for free from the App Store.
But should you download Apple Music Classical and how good use it? And why on earth has Apple made a separate app, rather than bundling all of this classical goodness into its existing Apple Music app?
We've answered all of these questions and more in this guide to Apple's unique app, which gives Apple Music a unique advantage in its battle with Spotify and the best music streaming services.
Apple Music Classical release date and price
Apple Music Classical is available to download now in any country where Apple Music is available. That includes the USA, UK and Australia, though countries including China, Japan and South Korea currently miss out.
You need an Apple Music subscription to listen to Apple Music Classical and there's currently no separate subscription available. Right now, that costs $ 10.99 / £10.99 / AU$ 12.99 a month.
(Image credit: Apple)
Considering Apple Music has over 100 million songs and Apple Musical Classical adds another 5 million tracks to that, that's pretty good value – particularly if you have wide-ranging taste from stretches from classical to college rock.
Apple Music Classical: how to download it
There are a few boxes to tick before you can start streaming Apple Music Classical. First, you need an individual, student, or family subscription to Apple Music – unfortunately, the cheaper Apple Voice ($ 4.99 / £4.99 / AU$ 5.99) plan doesn't include the new classical streaming service.
You also may need to update your iPhone's software. While you don't need to be running the absolute latest version of iOS 16, you will need a phone with iOS 15.4 or higher. That means any iPhone from the iPhone 6S onwards, including the iPhone SE.
(Image credit: Future)
Got both an Apple Music subscription and a relatively recent iPhone? You can download Apple Music Classical from the App Store right now. Just sign in with the same ID you use for your Apple Music subscription and you're off.
Unfortunately, there is currently no iPad app or Mac app for Apple Music Classical, which is a shame. But Apple has said that an Android app “is coming soon”. We'll update this page as soon as we know more about a date.
Apple Music Classical: what is it?
Apple Music Classical sounds like a straightforward concept – a spin-off from Apple Music where you can stream around five million orchestral tracks by all kinds of composers, from Bach to Mozart. But its surprising depth, which is built on Apple's purchase of the classical music app Primephonic in 2021, makes it suitable for all experience levels and shows why Apple decided to make it separate app.
Apple's calls the service “the world’s largest classical music catalogue” but its real appeal is the power of its search function. Because classical pieces have hundreds of recordings by different orchestras and conductors, traditional streaming apps can be difficult to navigate.
(Image credit: Apple)
Apple Music Classical promises to be an improvement thanks to the nuance of its Browse section, which lets you search by composer, period, genre, conductor, orchestra, soloist, ensemble, choir, instrument or even the work's opus number or nickname. That makes it easier to surface, for example, that particular movement by Massenet.
The app is also a pretty beginner-friendly introduction to the slightly intimidating world of classical music. Apple's created over 700 playlists along with some handy guides, like The Story of Classical, which combine commentary with works and breakdowns of classical terminology. We'd love Apple to do more of this for all genres of music in its own Music app, but it's definitely a nice feature here.
With some exclusive artwork, including high-resolution portraits of composers from Bach to Vivaldi, Apple Music Classical clearly wants to be as much a digital home for classical music fans (or fledgling fans) as it is a place to stream music. But Apple fortunately hasn't forgotten about sound quality either.
Apple Music Classical: features and design
As you'd hope for an app that's attempting to recreate the sound of a live orchestra at home – even if that isn't really possible – Apple Music Classical does promise impressive sound quality for a streaming service.
The app features lossless audio quality up to 24 bit/192 kHz throughout its catalog, which is a boon considering there's still no sign of equivalents like Spotify HiFi (its lossless, CD-quality offering). The quality you ultimately get, though, will depend on whether or not you're listening with wired or wireless headphones.
Some of the Apple Music Classical catalog is also available in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, which gets a bit closer to that 360-degree immersive live experience. You can find these pieces in its 'Now in Spatial Audio' section, which currently contains just over fifty works.
(Image credit: Apple)
You'll again need headphones or speakers that can handle Spatial Audio to benefit from this. And it's also worth bearing in mind that on Apple's wireless Bluetooth headphones (like the AirPods Max) you'll still only be able to stream Apple Music Classical in lossy quality, as lossless audio isn't currently possible over Bluetooth on Apple headphones.
Got some wired headphones or listening on some speakers? You can turn on lossless audio quality by going into your iPhone Settings menu and finding the Music app. From there, go to Audio Quality and tap 'Lossless Audio' to turn it on. Bear in mind that this will use a lot more data than usual, which means you may also want to turn off Cellular Data for the Music app (which also controls the settings for Apple Music Classical).
The overall design of Apple Music Classical is, as you'd expect, clean and simple, much like the Apple Music app. There's a refreshing lack of clutter compared to other music streaming apps like Spotify and the Browse section is particularly powerful for classical music.
You can add albums or playlists to your Library section by tapping the '+' symbol in the top right of either. But strangely, you can't download these tracks in Apple Music Classical for offline listening – instead, you need to go to the standard Apple Music app, find them there and then download them to your device.
Apple Music Classical: the downsides
Apple Music Classical certainly isn't perfect. For a start, there currently aren't any dedicated apps for iPad, Mac, Apple TV or CarPlay, which is strange. There also isn't an Android app yet, even though one is “coming soon”.
It's possible that this will change in the future, as Apple has stated that the current version of Apple Music Classical is “just the beginning”. But that does make it slightly more limited than it could have been, even if the likes of AirPlay are a workaround for Apple TV owners.
(Image credit: Future)
There are a few other limitations, too. There's no 'shuffle' option available for those who want to have more of a radio-style experience like the one offered by the standard Apple Music app. And in general, the design is set up for those who already know what piece of classical music they're looking for.
It also isn't possible to download tracks in Apple Music Classical for offline listening. But while Apple did previously confirm to us that there would be no offline listening option in the app, there is an unexpected workaround – you can find tracks saved to your Apple Music Classical library in the Apple Music app and download them from there. Not ideal, but better than nothing.
Apple Music Classical: early verdict
We're pretty impressed with Apple Music Classical so far. The streaming quality is good (particularly when you use wired headphones) and the catalog has depth and variety. The key benefit, though, is its powerful search function, which makes it far easier to browse classical music than, say, on Spotify.
(Image credit: Apple)
It's a shame there aren't more apps available, particularly for iPad and Mac. We hope that changes soon,, as it will for Android fans. And the offline listening setup, which you have to do via the Apple Music app, is a bit convoluted.
But for a first-gen offering, Apple Music Classical is a polished new experience for fans of the genre – and a unique differentiator for Apple Music when compared to the likes of Tidal, Amazon Music, and Spotify.
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