Apple Music Beta for Android Confirms Lossless Audio Streaming in the Works

[H3LL5P4WN]

Bring on that 4tb iPhone.

And can us 2tb M1 early adopters get a discount on the 10tb M2 Macs?

 

[Blowback]

I hope this will be a free upgrade for those paying for Apple One subscription.

Apple One being 'Top Tier' it had better be! Apple has to know that not ALL of Apple One is a draw for most and has to be thinking, aggressively , how to make it more appealing to the masses of subscribers. 'Services' IS the new mantra for Apples revenues.

 

[Blowback]

Honestly, I love the current iPhone model. But if Apple decides to port iTunes, iWork Apps, and at least most of the Apple Ecosystem over to Android I'd consider picking up a Galaxy or Pixel .... just one of those two.

Oh...they'll port them...free...for a year or so. Then....$$$$$! Disclaimer: Apple Stock holder. Otherwise: Apple hardware buyers are footing the software bill for Google customers.

 

[Spungoflex]

I think 24 bit is overkill for most people but I'm glad it is an option

My understanding is that 24-bit is mostly useless for listening, but is quite useful for recording (most music is recorded at 24-bits). At the least, this removes the step of converting 24-bit recordings to 16-bits, which can't hurt.

 

[dannyyankou]

They're not lossless when they upload to iCloud. Remove the download on your Apple Music macOS app and you'll see it switch to 256kbps when it re-downloads from iCloud.

I'm hoping with offering lossless streaming they'll allow us to upload lossless audio to our iCloud libraries.

Oh wow, I had no idea. And I’m guessing if you download on your phone, it downloads the 256kb version? That’s lame

 

[Spungoflex]

You’re forgetting the power of the placebo effect - if people believe the higher quality sounds better to them on their AirPods, then it will.

You might be joking, but placebo effect is real and is a legitimate benefit of "hi-res" music.

 

[maxfromdenmark]

Oof. Not sure why I didn't consider the impact of data usage with lossless. I listen to music most in the car.

Is that only me finding pointless listening lossless music in a car?

 

[tkermit]

Nice to see we'll finally be reaching CD quality again, 40 years after its introduction.

 

[ladodger5]

Is that only me finding pointless listening lossless music in a car?

There is a lot of factors like road noise that come into play. If you're just listening through bluetooth it wouldn't really make a difference if it lossless or not. If you have a good sound system and you don't use bluetooth you can actually tell lossless will sound better. The mids and highs sound cleaner than a compressed audio file.

 

[GLTirebiter]

Will I hear the difference? Likely not. Am I happy to hear this? Yes, especially if it drives a nail in the coffin of the MQA power grab.

 

[sully54]

Has Apple ever released a x.1 update a month apart? I would have guessed that 14.6 would be better released around the time of WWDC, but this doesn't match up with the rumoured May 18 date.

In any case, if HiFi is available on the Android version of Apple music, then there's a good chance that this isn't limited by hardware.

 

[dtuck90]

Looks like I’ll be cancelling Amazon Music HD. Apple Music will probably have the largest hi res streaming catalogue due to “Apple Digital Masters”

 

[rumz]

Oof. Not sure why I didn't consider the impact of data usage with lossless. I listen to music most in the car.

They need more ways to hype 5G 😁

I have wanted a lossless option for years— I had given up on Apple ever introducing it. I’m not too worried about bandwidth as I’m pretty intentional about what I listen to and prefer to have music saved for offline so that I’m not at the mercy of a cellular provider.

 

[dtuck90]

If they want to make the iTunes Store hi res as well at the same time I’ll be very pleased.

 

[bobmans]

Nice, sounds like a release is near. Hopefully it's included in the base subscription 👀

 

[VicTX]

I'll be skewered for this, but: I must be getting old...CD quality music is being hyped like it's a great "reveal" / super-duper perk... Wasn't it readily available on good ol' Sony Walkmans at least 15 years ago? And yes, CDs do sound better than MP3s (spare me the "can't tell the difference" generalization).

 

[azmscle]

256kbps AAC is good enough for me. There's nothing wrong with having the best, but I can't really tell the difference between lossless and 128kbps mp3. I reckon for every 100 people who will swear by lossless, there's probably 1 or 2 who can actually tell the difference.

Yep couldn’t agree more.
I’m very curious as to what big differences this will bring to sound quality or if it’s more of a marketing tactic (hence the rumors of it being the same price which would make sense).

I’ve done a bit of research on this lately and with Apple Digital Masters in Apple Music this almost feels pointless. ADM is designed to essentially be lossless. I know not every artists supports this but many of the albums I’ve checked in my catalog are ADM versions. And through some of the testing I’ve read up on there is not a perceivable difference between to the human ear between 256kbps AAC and lossless tracks if they’re Apple digital masters.

 

[JeffPerrin]

My understanding is that 24-bit is mostly useless for listening, but is quite useful for recording (most music is recorded at 24-bits). At the least, this removes the step of converting 24-bit recordings to 16-bits, which can't hurt.

Yep - 24bit is to audio as RAW is for photos. Those extra bits are there for editing headroom. But 24/48 probably looks better for marketing purposes than going with the ol' 16/44 spec from 1982.

 

[JeffPerrin]

ADM is designed to essentially be lossless.

This is just "Mastered for iTunes" rebranded. Details:

When you convert audio to a lossy codec, there are often times the signal can get distortion or digital clipping due to the lossy conversion process. ADM is just a program whereby engineers can use Apple-supplied tools to convert (and test) their audio to make sure it doesn't have any clipping when converted to lossy AAC. Basically, its just a quality-control program for 256kbps audio conversion.

EDIT: Here's the official link (note the url) https://www.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/

 

[gaximus]

I love great sound, but have a hard time hearing the difference in might quality vs lossless. When I bought my home theater sound system, I visited a lot of home setups, with some buying special spacers, so that their power cords don't touch the ground and some systems with $5000 power conditioners. I honestly couldn't hear there difference in those systems. But this is awesome for those that have those systems and can honestly tell the difference.

 

[gaximus]

Bring on that 4tb iPhone.

And can us 2tb M1 early adopters get a discount on the 10tb M2 Macs?

Hahaha, you'd think us early adopters would be rewarded, it's just the opposite.

 

[McKodiak]

I expect more of these greater data consuming services. They are starting to assume everyone has unlimited data...

…I do not.

 

[michael31986]

Will you be able to buy these?

 

[That70sGAdawg]

This is GREAT news! I always ripped my best CD's lossless & would appreciate all available music that way.

 

[ouimetnick]

Holy smokes. If Apple does actually offer this, and also redesigns the AirPlay 2 protocol to support streaming higher than CD quality (higher resolution audio is down sampled to CD resolution when using AirPlay 2) I may very well subscribe, especially if it’s $9. I’d like to see them offer the option to purchase and download high resolution music from the iTunes Store or whatever it’s called after this announcement. My music library is mostly CDs imported as .AIFF in iTunes, with some higher resolution music also in .AIFF purchased from HDTracks in 24/48 and some albums in 24/192. Would love to see a Apple solution.