Apple unveiled its classic app on Tuesday. It is available for free on iPhone only for Apple Music subscribers. It offers exclusive content such as current concerts by the Vienna Philharmonic and new previews and is characterized by a flexible search function and a wide range of suggestions for newcomers.
“Apple developing this service, Presto moving into streaming, Universal interested in Hyperion shows that classical music and its audience have a certain interest. Obviously only Spotify hasn’t figured it out yet. » Didier Martin, CEO of independent publisher Outhere, nicely summarizes the general mood of the classical music community regarding the arrival of Apple; It also defines a strategy aimed at both finding a target audience and offering a new service.
The cocoon
Have you noticed the Rolex advertisement when you go to the opera in the cinema? You can find it when you buy Opéra Magazine. The main feature of the classic Apple is to be an application for iPhone at the time of launch. Not available on computer or Android. For what ? To try to bring a supposedly educated and wealthier clientele into the Apple universe and sell them tablet phones and AirPods (AirPods+, which are in-ear or AirPods Max, the Bluetooth headset).
That has a consequence. When pre-announcing the service, Apple insisted on HD quality 24-96 and 24-192. Don’t forget to set the audio quality under “Music” to “lossless, high quality” on the latest iPhone generation. This is not the default. But even so, as confirmed by Michel Forbes of Tendances Electronics Design magazine, host of the Café audiophile, “the Bluetooth transmission protocol peaks at 48 kHz”. Perhaps we could consider connecting the phone to a digital-to-analog converter connected to an amplifier via the USB-C socket? But that’s not using a phone.
This gap seems to have appeared in Apple’s eyes because the ubiquitous HD logos or hints 24-96 and 24-192 on Qobuz and Presto do not appear. A “Lossless High Resolution” logo emerged during Tuesday’s very select press conference. At the moment we know that we are listening to a document “without loss in high quality” without knowing what it is.
Much more than a decal of Apple Music’s classic section, the application continues to make way for an acronym that seems to intrigue the “techno” milieu: Dolby Atmos. This technology brings a certainly spatialized sound, but mostly with “creamy” coated artificial timbres, as evidenced by listening to Shostakovich by Kirill Petrenko or Zarathoustra by François-Xavier Roth. “The Atmos process is spectacular and scientifically worked out, but it requires 30 loudspeakers,” explains Michel Forbes. “Thanks to an algorithm, we go from a ‘surround mix’ to a ‘binaural mix’ for headphones. With 30 choices to make; the risks are great. » Dolby Atmos can be removed in the phone settings.
exclusivity and research
Compared to the topics examined on Tuesday, Apple’s spearhead is a very effective positioning in exclusive products. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 by Semyon Bychkov on Pentatone, which will be released on April 7th, is already available on Classic Apple. Recently there were concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic with Franz Welser-Möst, Daniel Barenboim, Tugan Sokhiev and Alain Altinoglu, the New York Philharmonic, an excellent 1st Beethoven concert with Alice Sara Ott and Karina Canellakis.
But listening to a Mahler 7th symphony by Daniel Barenboim in Vienna, even on the comfy AirPods Max, reminds one of Marc Zisman’s common sense observation, of Qobuz: “Despite increasing usage over the phone, the computer remains first tools of our customers. » Where is the digital-to-analog decoder of an audiophile streaming? On a computer connected to a channel … Unless you wait for your Mercedes EQE with the Dolby Atmos option, a listening option that we’ll save you the price of.
The listening platform Idagio is the first “victim” of the classic Apple. Apple’s search tool is very flexible, insensitive to linguistic peculiarities and small errors. If you search for “Beethoven Symphony 7 Karajan” you will find several versions, while with Idagio you need to know how to find your way, just search for the symphony and then select Karajan among the conductors.
Apple has also more or less fixed Primephonic’s shortcomings. When searching for Handel’s Messiah or an opera, the information certainly comes out in a different order (sometimes the soloists, sometimes the orchestra, sometimes the conductor at the top), but the conductor is no longer relegated to the end, and we have a pragmatic one perception of the proposed versions. However, the size of the pockets is more comfortable with Presto.
The core goal
Qobuz and Presto have a more precise idea of the “core target”, which will mainly focus on monitoring the news of publications. Apple, aiming at a wider audience, wants to reassure with lists of the most important things. “On general platforms, playlists account for more than 90% of listening, while on Idagio more than 30% of listening results from a listener’s search,” Till Janczukowicz, the platform’s founder, told us.
Apple has a very ingrained list logic. Playlists are labeled wall to wall by genre, artist, instrument, and even recorder. The “Conductors” and “Soloists” sections are based on legends and not on the stars of the hour, who do well everywhere else. Personal libraries and other classic Apple playlists are imported into Apple Music.
The results are clear: Apple has done a good job, but Qobuz (in Quebec in May) and Presto can open the champagne because they have all the means to keep the “core target” of traditional customers for three reasons. First, possible integration with high-fidelity channels. Then clarity on the proposed audio format. Finally access to 70,000 digital booklets at Presto and several hundred thousand at Qobuz.
As for Apple, the proposal is evolving with open questions: the real opening of the classic Apple to the computer and Android will be “later” for the first and “soon” for the second, without further details. . The specific platform does not change the way artists are compensated, so the answer we were given, and a clarification of the sound definition seems far from the agenda.