Apple has ended weeks long speculation with the official announcement of new additions to the sound quality features on Apple Music. The streaming service will now offer Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos and music streaming in Lossless Audio. These features will arrive in June at zero extra cost to existing subscriptions options.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Apple Music will automatically play Dolby Atmos tracks on all AirPods and Beats Headphones with either the H1 or W1 chips. This is also applicable to the built-in speakers in the latest versions of iPhone, iPad, and Mac. In addition to this, subscribers will enjoy ‘thousands of songs’ across different genre in Spatial audio and the streaming service is working with artists and labels to add new and re-release tracks or album releases for Spatial Audio Experience.
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Apple is no stranger to Spatial Audio as it offers this feature on the AirPods Max and AirPods Pro. Together with Spatial Audio expereince, Apple Music would add and curate Dolby Atmos tracks and label albums which fit the criteria. It is however, not spelt out if Dolby Atmos is available to Apple Music customers or requires an Apple device to function.
Apple will also be offering its entire library of songs (over 75 million) in lossless audio. Apple Music has its sight on using its own own proprietary codec – the Apple Lossless Audio Codec (APAC) to preserve the audio file in its original state – the format which the artiste created in the studio. To turn this feature on, simply visit Settings in Apple Music and navigate to Audio Quality via Music.
Here, you can select different resolutions starting from 16 bit at 44.1 kHz (CD Quality) and up to 24 bit at 48 kHz on Apple devices. There is a Hi-Resolution Lossless tier which goes all the way to 24 bit at 192 kHz. Currently, only Apple Music offers (or plans to offer) Lossless Audio for free. Other services such as Spotify Hi-Fi, Amazon Music HD and Tidal Hi-Fi/Masters offer this service at a higher price well above the than base subscription amount.
Source: Apple Newsroom (AU)
PS: kHz means kilohertz.