iOS 16 Brings New Personalized Spatial Audio Feature That Uses TrueDepth Camera

[MacRumors]

Apple in iOS 16 is enhancing the spatial audio experience with a new personalization feature. Personalized Spatial Audio uses the TrueDepth camera on an iPhone running iOS 16 to scan your ears and the area around you, delivering a unique listening experience that's tuned to you.

The feature received just a brief mention during the keynote event, but it will make the listening experience on AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, and other devices that support spatial audio better than ever.

Apple says that the tuned spatial audio feature brings an even more precise listening experience.

Article Link: iOS 16 Brings New Personalized Spatial Audio Feature That Uses TrueDepth Camera

 

[AhRiHmAn]

We don’t need gimmicks like spatial audio , we need a fully functional music app, and something like Spotify Connect !

 

[GubbyMan]

No no no. This doesn't scan the room. Craig never said that during the keynote. I thought this would scan your ear geometry to better simulate how you hear sound. Basically generating an HRTF. Or am I wrong?

 

[ignatius345]

No exaggeration, Spatial Audio on AirPods Max has been the biggest upgrade in sound I've ever experienced.

 

[appleguy123]

I thought it was scanning your ear with the true depth (Face ID) camera. I don’t think it does anything with the room itself unless I missed it.

 

[ignatius345]

We don’t need gimmicks like spatial audio , we need a fully functional music app, and something like Spotify Connect !

I'd love to see something like Spotify Connect for Apple Music. And the Music app in general is pretty anemic.

But I really doubt the audio engineers who work on Spatial Audio are the same people who build the UI for Music or who would build a Spotify Connect-like feature.

 

[bobmans]

When did they ever say this scans the room? I thought it scanned your head/ears proportions or w/e

 

[Costino1]

Yeah im here for the "scanning the room" part. Im too lazy to go back and re-listen, but I never heard him say "scans the room." That sounds pretty epic though if true. Useful? Not sure, but cool.

 

[RagingAvatar]

Yep, it was about HRTF and scanning ears not the room. Oops!

 

[contacos]

We don’t need gimmicks like spatial audio , we need a fully functional music app, and something like Spotify Connect !

Yep. Main reason I haven’t looked at AM again. I was shocked to find out that u can’t control music on device x with device y without interrupting what is playing on device x. „Ooops it seems like u r already listening to apple music on iPhone XY“

 

[Maestroso]

It’s for generating a HRTF. You wouldn’t want to scan a room for headphones. For that, you can use impulse responses.

In any case, individualized HRTFs would be awesome as you could recreate any speaker or room arrangement. Similar to what Mesh2HRTF does.

 

[NeoSe7en]

I’ve never understood Spatial Audio. It just makes it seem like the sound is coming directly from the source device rather than your headphones. How does that improve the sound experience?

 

[reklex]

imagine if the Siri team was 1/5th as competent as the Audio team.

 

[macduke]

Great so my phone can scan the ceiling and part of my head while watching a video.

 

[_Spinn_]

I thought he said it scans your head or ears not the room?

 

[neuropsychguy]

I’ve never understood Spatial Audio. It just makes it seem like the sound is coming directly from the source device rather than your headphones. How does that improve the sound experience?

I love Spatial Audio. It's fancy surround sound. If I'm listening to an orchestra it sounds more like I'm the conductor than just there experiencing the music. If I'm listening to a pop/rock song, the effect can be subtle for some song but other ones can have pinpoint sound locations. I can hear drums from one location, vocals from another, guitars from still another, and so forth. It really depends on the source material though. Many times it doesn't add much but when it does, it's immersive and incredible.

 

[reklex]

I just got the beta and set up this and the whole process looks like some futuristic stuff i'm not gonna lie

 

[topdownjimmy]

It scans your ears, not the room:

Spatial Audio works by understanding how sound interacts with the geometry of your head and ears. And now, in iOS 16, you can use the TrueDepth camera on iPhone to create a personalized spatial audio profile, enabling an even more precise and immersive listening experience, tuned just for you.

 

[ignatius345]

I love Spatial Audio. It's fancy surround sound. If I'm listening to an orchestra it sounds more like I'm the conductor than just there experiencing the music. If I'm listening to a pop/rock song, the effect can be subtle for some song but other ones can have pinpoint sound locations. I can hear drums from one location, vocals from another, guitars from still another, and so forth. It really depends on the source material though. Many times it doesn't add much but when it does, it's immersive and incredible.

Yeah, it really varies depending on the source. It sounds incredible with a lot of music and with movies in general, but kind of weird with certain tracks. I often find myself toggling it off and on to hear the difference. I think there's a distinction to be made between things that were mastered for Atmos and whatnot, and older tracks where the Spatialize effect is sort of reinterpreting the way it was recorded.

And it sounds pretty horrible with podcasts across the board -- it seems to add a bunch of reverb but also make the vocals too intense, like the speaker is using a sensitive mic in a huge room.

 

[neoelectronaut]

Spatial audio for music is still the most bizarre thing to be.

Movies and TV shows, sure, got it, it's the traditional surround theater experience.

...but music? Why do I want it to sound like the drummer is one specific corner of the room?

 

[topdownjimmy]

I see you’ve updated the post to say it scans your ears and the area around you, instead of just “the room” — but no, I seriously doubt it has anything to do with the area or room you’re in. This is about scanning your head and ears. That’s it. It uses TrueDepth, which couldn’t possibly know much detail about the room around you; on top of which, your room is likely to change as you move around your home or onto a subway or into a cafe. This is just about the shape of your head and ears.

 

[anthogag]

Does a person hold the iPhone close to the ear to scan it? Yes, Craig briefly talked about this feature for spatial audio.

 

[God of Biscuits]

It’s for generating a HRTF. You wouldn’t want to scan a room for headphones. For that, you can use impulse responses.

In any case, individualized HRTFs would be awesome as you could recreate any speaker or room arrangement. Similar to what Mesh2HRTF does.

There are already apps on the App Store for generating an HHTF profile for yourself. You add it to your Health profile on your phone and then it gets applied to your listening experiences. Or per device. I forget which. It was drastic for me, even emotional on some old songs.

 

[ignatius345]

There are already apps on the App Store for generating an HHTF profile for yourself. You add it to your Health profile on your phone and then it gets applied to your listening experiences. Or per device. I forget which. It was drastic for me, even emotional on some old songs.

Whoa, I did not know about this! Any app in particular you used to generate the profile?

 

[RedWeasel]

There are already apps on the App Store for generating an HHTF profile for yourself. You add it to your Health profile on your phone and then it gets applied to your listening experiences.

Are you not confusing this with the audiogram functionality in Health?

HRTF is something completely different. I can only really see Genelec Aural ID in the app store that does something similar, but not with TrueDepth. And it costs a couple hundred bucks. Per year.