Primephonic was a classical music streaming service that was acquired by Apple in 2021. Envisioned as a supplement to major streaming services, Primephonic aimed to address the classical music niche with search features customized for the genre, hand-coded metadata, and compensation for artists based on time streamed, not tracks played.[1] Access to the service ultimately ceased in September 2021.
In 2020, Henrique Boregio, the company's chief technology officer (CTO), stated that a majority of Primephonic's users "are age 55 plus and are highly educated and relatively well off".[2]
On August 30, 2021, Apple Inc. announced that they had acquired the company. Access to the service was ended on September 7, 2021.[3] Apple Music planned to integrate Primephonic's assets into a similar classical music streaming service in 2022 but the service's release date was not announced until 2023 to be released March 28, 2023.
The app uses much of the music and data from Primephonic.[4] On March 28, 2023, Apple released Apple Music Classical—a secondary app for Apple Music subscribers that incorporates similar features.[5]