APPLE Music is upgrading the quality of everyone’s music totally free of charge.
The firm is converting all 75million Apple Music tracks into a “lossless” format – and offering support for Dolby Audio too.
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It’s coming as a free update in June, and lands months ahead of Spotify’s own “lossless” offering.
Usually when you listen to songs over a streaming service, they’re compressed.
This means some of the original audio quality is missing, for the sake of saving space on your phone – or making tracks easier to stream over the internet.
But there’s a big push for more lossless audio, which is the original full-quality track with no missing “bits”.
Apple is adding support for lossless audio, as well as Spatial Audio support for Dolby Atmos.
“Apple Music is making its biggest advancement ever in sound quality,” said Apple’s Oliver Schusser, who heads up Music.
“Listening to a song in Dolby Atmos is like magic.
“The music comes from all around you and sounds incredible.”
Apple Music will automatically play Dolby Atmos tracks if you’ve got a pair of AirPods or Beats with an H1 or W1 chip.
It’ll also activate if you’re using the built-in speakers on the latest iPhone, iPad and Mac models.
Sadly, Lossless Audio is not available on any AirPods, including the AirPods Max.
Apple reeled off a host of popular artists whose music will be supporting Dolby Atmos playback.
It includes:
- J Balvin
- Gustavo Dudamel
- Ariana Grande
- Maroon 5
- Kacey Musgraves
- The Weeknd
The entire Apple Music catalogue is also being offered up in Lossless Audio.
That means over 75million songs can be heard using the ALAC codec (Apple Lossless Audio CODEC).
This preserves every single bit of the original audio file, so you get the best possible listening experience.
Of course, the quality of your listening session will also depend on the headphones you’re using – and whether you’re somewhere quiet.
Nevertheless, it’s a handy and free upgrade.
To activate Lossless Audio, go to Settings > Music > Audio Quality.
You can choose multiple options, including the maximum Hi-Res Lossless option of 24bits at 192kHz.
Apple says thousands of tracks will be available in Spatial Audio at launch, with more added down the line.
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In other news, check out our live coverage of the Apple Spring event.
And take a look at the big updates from the event here:
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- New iPad Pro 2021 – a better screen, support for 5G internet, and the speedy M1 chip at its heart
- Apple AirTags – location-tracking tags that strap onto your keys or luggage, to be monitored using Apple’s Find My app on your iPhone
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