Apple Music gets lossless streaming, Dolby Atmos spatial audio: What it suggests, how to use and other facts

Apple Music: Apple has mentioned that customers with the most recent OS on iPhones, iPads and Mac would be capable to stream each normal lossless or CD-good quality audio and higher-resolution lossless audio for choose tracks on Apple Music. Its spatial audio features are also getting launched. For getting capable to stream higher-resolution lossless audio, even so, customers would have to have an external DAC. The announcement was made by Cupertino throughout its Worldwide Developer Conference – WWDC 2021 – on Monday, and the feature is getting rolled out promptly. However, it may well take some time prior to all the customers are capable to get access to this feature, given that the update is server-side.

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Explaining what higher-resolution lossless audio is, Apple mentioned, “Most audio compression techniques lose some amount of data contained in the original source file. Lossless compression is a form of compression that preserves all of the original data.”

It will have to be noted that higher-good quality lossless audio streaming would consume a lot more information and downloading such audio would take up more storage space. By default, the streaming solution would be the normal AAC, and customers wanting to listen to higher-res lossless audio would have to have to transform their preference in the iOS settings by going to the Music app section, heading to the Audio Quality section and enabling the Lossless Audio solution.

At the time of the launch, more than 2 crore songs would be accessible in each normal lossless and higher-resolution lossless audio alternatives. Notably, Apple Music has a catalogue of 7.5 crore songs and all of them would come to be accessible in higher-res lossless audio good quality by the finish of the year.

At present, this feature can be enjoyed on iPhones, iPads, Apple Television 4K and Mac, and in subsequent software program updates, HomePod and HomePod Mini would also get the assistance for this.

A crucial factor to be remembered is that though Apple’s AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, and Beats headphones give fantastic audio good quality, this is only accurate for AAC audio. This suggests that they would not be capable to play higher-res lossless audio the way it is intended and would rather play back as standard tracks, and consequently, an external DAC is encouraged.

However, as per Apple, its normal lossless audio is delivered with the aid of its personal in-property Advanced Audio Codec or AAC, which was created to provide the highest requirements of audio. Accordingly, Cupertino has now mentioned that “the difference between AAC and lossless audio is virtually indistinguishable”, in spite of which it is providing this feature to its customers. While this feature would attract no added expense above the subscription price tag for Apple Music, it is not clear what specifically would be the benefit that customers would get if they would not be capable to use this feature more than Bluetooth and would have to have an external DAC for this.

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Apart from this, Broadcast radio, Live radio and on-demand content from Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country, and Music videos would not be accessible in higher-res lossless.

Meanwhile, Apple Music is also providing immersive, Dolby Atmos-powered mixes or the spatial audio tracks, even though they would be a lot lesser in quantity than the lossless ones. At the time of launch, thousands of tracks are getting provided with spatial audio, and more are quickly to be added, as per Cupertino.

Originally appeared on: TheSpuzz