Apple Music's Lossless feature needs wired headphones, AirPods to only get Spatial Audio

Apple has clarified and shared more details on its new Lossless and Spatial Audio offerings. You can enable Lossless with any pair of headphones, but it will not work over Bluetooth, so none of the AirPods will support the feature. Even the AirPods Max with its Lightning-to-3.5mm connector for wired use won't get the Lossless option. You'll need wired headphones to get the better sound quality option. And for the even higher Apple Music Hi Res Lossless, you'll need an external DAC to get it to work.

As for Spatial Audio, the AirPods will get support for the feature; the same goes for Beats models with Apple's H1 or W1 chip. If you're wondering about the HomePod or HomePod mini, these won't get the Lossless feature either. Spatial Audio will be coming to the HomePod, but we don't know if the HomePod mini will get it. Compatible Mac machines will get Spatial Audio as well.

Source: 9to5Mac + MacRumors

Apple Music brings lossless streaming, Spatial Audio support with Dolby Atmos

Updated on Monday, May 17, 2021 at 10:04PM by Nicole Batac

Apple

After all the rumours, Apple has officially announced its Music streaming service will bring a lossless music quality option to its entire catalogue beginning next month. You won't need to pay extra to get the feature. 

You have to opt-in to access the lossless mode. Head to Settings > Music > Audio Quality and then select Lossless or Hi-Resolution Lossless.

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Apple Music for Android APK teardown shows details on possible lossless offering

The Apple Music app on Android seems to have revealed new details on the company's rumoured lossless offering. 9to5Google found code snippets referring to two different tires of high-fidelity audio—"Lossless" and "High-res Lossless." The former will supposedly have songs encoded in Apple's ALAC codec up to 48kHz, while the latter improves the quality up to 192kHz.

Dolby Atmos or Dolby Audio wasn't spotted in the code for Apple Music 3.6, but it was referenced by the company in iOS 14.6 beta 1 before it was removed from beta 2. 

iOS 14.6 beta 1 spotted potential Apple Music HiFi support with Dolby Audio mentions

Photo by Thomas Kolnowski on Unsplash

Rumours have been going around that Apple plans to introduce a HiFi plan on Apple Music. And that plan might be in the works. 9to5Mac spotted mentions of "Dolby Atmos," "Dolby Audio," and "Lossless" in the first beta build of iOS 14.6. Apple already has its own HiFi audio codec (ALAC), but the Music app has never offered any support for Dolby Atmos or Dolby Audio. 

As 9to5Mac pointed out, though, the references only showed up in that beta build. It wasn't spotted in iOS 14.5 or iOS 14.6 beta 2, which came out this week. It suggests Apple might be trying to hide something. We hope to find out soon enough.