Apple launched its classic app on Tuesday. It is available for free to Apple Music subscribers, on iPhone only. Offering exclusive content such as recent concerts by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and new previews, it stands out with a flexible search tool and varied proposals for neophytes.
“Apple, which creates this service, Presto, which launches into the streaming, Universal who is interested in Hyperion, it shows that classical music and its audience are of some interest. Obviously, only Spotify hasn’t understood yet. » Didier Martin, CEO of the independent publisher Outhere, sums up well the general feeling of the classical music community regarding the arrival of Apple; it also defines a strategy aimed as much at seeking out a target audience as at offering a new service.
The cocoon
Have you noticed the Rolex ad, if you go to the opera at the cinema? You find it if you buy Opera Magazine. The primary characteristic of classic Apple is to be, at the date of launch, an application for iPhone. Not available on computer or Android. For what ? To try to bring a supposedly educated and more affluent clientele into the Apple universe, and sell them tablet phones and AirPods (AirPods+ which are put in the ear or AirPods Max, the Bluetooth headset).
This has a consequence. When pre-announcing the arrival of the service, Apple insisted on the high definition quality 24-96 and 24-192. To achieve this, in the latest generation iPhone, don’t forget to set the audio quality in “Music” to “lossless, high quality”. This is not the default setting. But even so, as confirmed by Michel Forbes, of the magazine Electronic Design Trends, host of the Café audiophile, “the Bluetooth transmission protocol peaks at 48 kHz”. Perhaps we could consider connecting the phone via the USB-C socket to a digital-to-analog converter linked to an amplifier? But such is not the use of a telephone.
This hiatus seems to have appeared in Apple’s eyes, because the HD logos or indications 24-96 and 24-192, ubiquitous at Qobuz and Presto, do not appear. During the very select press conference on Tuesday, a logo ” lossless high resolution came up. For now, we know that we listen to a document “without loss in high quality” without knowing what it is.
The application is much more than a decal of the classic section of Apple Music, but continues to make room for an acronym that seems to fascinate the “techno” milieu: Dolby Atmos. This technology brings a sound that is certainly spatialized, but most often with “creamy” coated, artificial timbres, as evidenced by Kirill Petrenko’s listening to Shostakovich or the Zarathustra by Francois-Xavier Roth. “The Atmos process is spectacular and scientifically elaborated, but requires 30 loudspeakers”, explains Michel Forbes. “Thanks to an algorithm, we go from a “surround mix” to a “binaural mix” for headphones. With 30 decisions to make; the risks are great. »Dolby Atmos can be removed in the phone settings.
Exclusives and research
Compared to the issues examined on Tuesday, Apple’s spearhead is a very effective positioning on exclusives. So the 2e Symphony by Mahler by Semyon Bychkov at Pentatone, out April 7, is already available on Apple Classic. There are recent concerts by the Vienna Philharmonic with Franz Welser-Möst, Daniel Barenboim, Tugan Sokhiev and Alain Altinoglu, the New York Philharmonic, an excellent 1er Concerto by Beethoven with Alice Sara Ott and Karina Canellakis.
But listening to a 7e Symphony of Mahler by Daniel Barenboim in Vienna, even on the comfortable AirPods Max, we remember the observation of common sense by Marc Zisman, of Qobuz: “Despite an increase in use via the telephone, the computer remains the first tool of our customers. » Where is the analog digital decoder of a streaming audiophile? On a computer connected to a channel… Unless you’re waiting for your Mercedes EQE with the Dolby Atmos option, a listening option that we’ll spare you the price of.
The listening platform Idagio is in fact the first “victim” of classic Apple. Apple’s search tool is very flexible, insensitive to language peculiarities and small errors. When you look for “Beethoven Symphony 7 Karajan”, you find its multiple versions, whereas at Idagio, you have to know how to navigate, only look for the symphony, then select Karajan from among the conductors.
Apple has also more or less remedied the shortcomings of Primephonic. When looking for the Messiah of Händel or an opera, the information certainly comes out in variable order (sometimes the soloists, sometimes the orchestra, sometimes the conductor in the lead), but the conductor is no longer relegated to the end, and we have a pragmatic perception of the versions proposed. The size of the pockets is however more pleasant at Presto.
The core target
Qobuz and Presto have a more accurate sense of the “core target” which will focus primarily on monitoring the news of publications. Apple, aiming for a wider audience, wants to be reassuring with lists of essentials. “On generalist platforms, playlists represent more than 90% of listening, while at Idagio, more than 30% of listening results from a search by the listener”, told us Till Janczukowicz, founder of the platform. ‘listen.
Apple has a very ingrained logic of lists. Its playlists are tagged wall to wall by genre, by performer, by instrument, even the recorder. The “conductors” and “soloists” sections are based on legends and not on the stars of the hour, who are doing well everywhere else. Personal libraries and other classic Apple playlists import 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 assets to keep the “core target” of traditional customers for three reasons. First, possible integration with high-fidelity channels. Then, clarity about the proposed audio format. Finally, access at Presto to 70,000 digital record booklets and several hundred thousand at Qobuz.
As for Apple, the proposal remains evolving with outstanding questions: the real opening of 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 induce a change in the type of remuneration for artists, according to the answer given to us, and a clarification on the sound definition seems far from on the agenda.