In reality, 99% of users don't care about lossless, and 99.99% don't care about FLAC. And the 0.01% will surely find another reason not to buy Apple products.
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Apple Preparing HD Audio Playback for iOS 8 Alongside New In-Ear Headphones and Lightning Cable
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In reality, 99% of users don't care about lossless, and 99.99% don't care about FLAC. And the 0.01% will surely find another reason not to buy Apple products.
If Apple is pushing HD Audio, they damn well better have 32GB storage for entry-level iOS devices. 16GB just doesn't cut it anymore.
Why do you think it is one or the other? HD audio downloads would complement iTunes Radio, not replace it. If there was the option to buy HD music on the iTunes Store then I would only buy a few select albums in that format and continue ripping Audio CDs for the rest. HD movies have existed on the iTunes Store for years and buyers decide if they want to pay extra for them in leu of the SD versions.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Cue 8 posts about "the future": "stream everything from the cloud"
Make Apple's biggest customers (AT&T, Verizon, etc) happy by yet another "innovation" that helps us all burn through data tiers even quicker.
Now where's that streaming video, "cable killer" service?
And then where's that 4K streaming video service?
I think it's all about data burn now- make the subsidy payers happy. Every signature innovation the last few years has been streaming data dependent. Apparently, here comes another one.
Personally, I love the choice for higher quality files. But I doubt there's any mainstream mobile phones/buds where the average set of ears can genuinely hear the difference. At home, on the "big" system and speakers, maybe. Little pieces of plastic jammed in our ear canals playing back noticeably better quality via micro-drivers? Doubtful. But again, AT&T, Verizon, etc will be happy with the additional revenue.
Yes. And I'm not a famous musician that can leverage my name. I was just pointing out that audiophiles are a small segment of consumers.
You're absolutely right. The ones that came with my iPhone 5 are completely unbearable. They're so big and hard plastic, they kill my ears to have them in for more than a few seconds. I think this is a great move by them.
The issue I see is the ability to listen to music and charge your iPhone at the same time. Often I will listen to music/radio while at work while charging my iPhone.
Especially when you dont even get the full 16GB, by the time the OS is loaded then all the "apple apps" get loaded you're down to about 8 GB free for your own apps, music, videos, etc.
And there lies the problem. Apple is too focused on chasing the 99% in 2014. That was never what Apple was about. This is a implementation that would cost nothing, add value to a lot of people and wouldn't even detract from Apple on their "capture the plebs" goal.
Its also worth pointing out that I have recently seen a few of my friends who are long term Apple users leave the ecosystem because of pettiness like this.
I didn't think the sound quality was great, but IMHO they were very comfortable.
And I thought both the quality and the comfort were good ... just to round out the day
.Good to hear they might be doing updated ones, updates are usually good ... well actually, iOS7, Lion, maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up ><.
The default iPod/iPhone headphones and the earPods have generally been shocking, really uncomfortable in the ears, and not at all a good fit despite their research.... I would love it if they did Bluetooth in-ear ones, and did whatever they needed to make the cord controls work on non-Apple devices.
Sennheiser is great but if you want premium go with Shure, Grado, or Klipsch (I'm not ignoring Ultimate Ears or other similar high-end, I just listed a few brands that have options in a range of affordability that produce consistent quality for the price).
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Not necessarily. I run a high end system off iPod/iPhone with portable DAC/amp/headphones. The DAC makes the least amount of difference when taken out of the chain. The quality of the head/earphones has the most effect followed by the amp.
All Apple cables are terrible, weak and fail quickly. Someone in that group needs telling off.
can't wait till they release the Beats branded, lightening port enabled, electrostatic tube amp that drives a pair of Stax. Oh, who am I kidding... Stax is their next acquisition
You can change the sampling frequency and bit depth in OS X with the 'Audio MIDI Setup' (in the 'Utilities' folder).
A very good HD-Audio-Player for OS X is btw 'Audirvana Plus'.
I wonder if iTunes Radio HD/HiFi will be a paid subscription model.
"you want the truest-sounding audio, like the warmth of a record and you can have it today with iTunes Audio HD...why not stream songs in HD for only $49 a year. That's a bargain compared to other subscription models giving you audio that isn't high quality..."
<audience cheers>
"you want the truest-sounding audio, like the warmth of a record and you can have it today with iTunes Audio HD...why not stream songs in HD for only $49 a year. That's a bargain compared to other subscription models giving you audio that isn't high quality..."
<audience cheers>
Now we just need a way to upgrade the human ear, which becomes the bottleneck once you start pumping 96kHz audio into your earphones.
If you can cut your iPhone's storage in half out of the box, you have bigger problems.
Sennheiser is definitely premium too if you use the HD 800 or IE 800, another premium In-Ear from Europe is the AKG K3003.
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