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Apple Music on an iPhone
Photo: Apple
Apple is trying to set itself apart from the competition with a new offer.
The entire Apple Music offering will in future also be available to subscription customers in the Apple Lossless format, the company announced on Monday.
In this way, listeners can use a higher audio quality than before.
In addition, “thousands of songs” are to be made available in Apple Music in 3D audio versions with support for Dolby Atmos.
Both offers should be free for subscribers.
With this move, the US group is not only reacting to the trend of listening to digitally streamed music on high-quality audio systems, but also to offers and announcements from the competition. With Qobuz, for example, there has been a streaming service specializing in hi-fi customers for a long time, offering high-quality music streaming at prices from 14.99 euros per month. With the US service Tidal, the hi-fi subscription with Dolby Atmos option costs 19.99 euros per month. Amazon's Music HD subscription was previously available from 7.99 euros per month and can be used by Music Unlimited subscribers at no extra charge in the future. Spotify has only announced a hi-fi offer so far.
A look at the sound quality that will be available from Apple Music in the future shows that Apple is also keeping an eye on high-end customers with its Losless range. Accordingly, the new offer starts with the equivalent of music CDs, i.e. 16-bit resolution at a sampling rate of 44 kilohertz (KHz). If you have the appropriate audiophile equipment - there is no such thing from Apple - you can also select 24 bit at 192 KHz, which is studio quality. It should be noted that the higher the resolution, the larger the file size and thus the required bandwidth.
According to Apple, the functions
can be activated
via
Settings> Music> Audio Quality
.
However, this does not apply immediately, but only from June.
The company does not give an exact date.
However, the WWDC developer conference will take place as an online event from June 7th to 11th.
At the same time as the upgrading of all 75 million songs on Apple Music's offer, a small part of them is also to be made available in the Dolby Atmos surround format, which has so far been mainly used in movies.
By default, Apple Music plays tracks in Dolby Atmos format on all AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip, as well as on the built-in speakers of the latest iPhones, iPads and Macs.
The HomePods are not mentioned in this context, which is a bit surprising. Finally, there is already the option of listening to Dolby Atmos sound through a pair of HomePods when they are connected to an Apple TV 4K.