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New AirPods Pro Firmware Introduces Spatial Audio Support and Automatic Switching

NightFox said:
I think that the idea is that it fixes the surround sound stage with reference to your device - for example, if there's a dialogue track coming from a character on the screen and you turn your head to the left, the speech will sound like it's still coming from your phone (now to your right). However, if there's a surround sound effect that's playing to your left (i.e. 100% in your left ear) and you turn your head left to face it, the effect will now sound like it's coming from directly in front of you.
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Would you have to “turn a lot” though? Wouldn’t want to take my eyes off the screen, hoping for maybe just a nudge tilt to be sufficient? Also a person talking on the left side of the screen is still kinda in front of you but a bit to the left.

On that note, FPS like experiences must be even more crazy now, like Hardcore Henry or that music video that was like a first person game.
 
romaguyntx said:
I don't understand this either - have been googling all morning - why emulate sound coming from the screen?!?!?! Isn't that why I'm using headphones? This function description sounds different than the original description about spatial audio being more like surround.
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This is a misunderstanding. It is 3D Audio, sound is coming from all around you.

It also happens that most movies even with Dolby Atmos, map the dialogue to the center of the basebed, which is exactly where your phone is in the virtual space, so it seems like the dialogue is coming from your screen.

In a surround Atmos setup, the same can be said about your TV.
 
So interestingly enough, I tried to update my firmware but it won't get past 2D27 however, I have the Spatial Audio option available both in settings and in the control center. And it appears to be working, tested with a couple of Apple TV+ shows on my iPhone 11 Pro Max running iOS 14 Beta 8.

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chrfr said:
This makes no sense because the iPad 6th Generation and 7th Generation use the A10 CPU, which is quite inferior to the A10X that’s in the 10.5” Pro. It seems, unsurprisingly, like it’s a marketing driven cutoff.
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The requirements for spatial audio for iPads is a dick move by Apple. Reminds me of the two wireless pairs of AirPods/Beats connected to a device feature in iOS 13 which was for devices released in 2017 or later
 
Just been playing around whilst on with Apple Support and strangely it now works and has been updated

It is mental

But have found that if you look away from the screen for a period of time it seems to reset the spatial stage to where you are looking
 
4jasontv said:
What content did you use? My iPhone has the newest beta, and I just tried some YouTube, Apple Music, and the live action lion king and I don't feel any spatial senses. The phones says it's on, but I can move my head relative to my iPhone and nothing happens. I also tried moving the phone about and I tried with just one headphone. Nothing.
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Some Disney+, Greyhound on Apple TV+ for example... I guess where the audio is actually encoded in multichannel.
 
I got the new firmware and I can see the "spatial audio" option. But it just does not work... I tried Apple TV+ content (eg. Ted Lasso, Greyhound) but when I turn on the spatial audio it says "Spatial audio turned on. This content does not support spatial audio""

I tried it on iPhone XS and iPad Pro 11'. Did anyone else have the same issue?

Edit: ok, not it works. Didn't change anything. Aaand now it shows the same message (content does not support spatial audio).
 
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4jasontv said:
What content did you use? My iPhone has the newest beta, and I just tried some YouTube, Apple Music, and the live action lion king and I don't feel any spatial senses. The phones says it's on, but I can move my head relative to my iPhone and nothing happens. I also tried moving the phone about and I tried with just one headphone. Nothing.
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You need to check that the media has multichannel audio in it. YouTube and Apple Music are both 2-channel, stereo. It can’t add more channels to that. Also, the app needs to use Apple’s standard APIs to play back the media.

Bottom line: Not limited to ATV+ only. Verified by many people already. Don’t know on what basis some people claim it only supports ATV+ content, as if it was some kind of lock-in ploy. Not true.

If anything, this gives pressure to YouTube to start supporting multichannel audio. They’ve got a Premium subscription after all. Same for Netflix, though in their case I suspect that they use non-standard playback APIs and need to update them.
 
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Oddly enough I can see on the console on MacOS that the iPhone is trying to download the update for the AirPods Pro; the problem is that it is trying to access Apple's server and is sadly getting a 403 unauthorised error:


Guess that apple still hasn't pushed the update for the ANC version or whatever it is?
I wonder what the difference between the A2084-ANC and the normal version of the AirPods Pro is, if any.
 
While everyone cheers the spacial audio, I want auto switch work. But it doesn’t. I dont care about spacial audio at all.
 
Shirasaki said:
While everyone cheers the spacial audio, I want auto switch work. But it doesn’t. I dont care about spacial audio at all.
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Try rebooting everything. Auto-switching failed to work initially. After I rebooted everything, at first I thought it wasn't working on a YouTube video, but 1:30 into the video, the audio switched over. Odd that it took 90 seconds to figure out I was playing audio on another device. I haven't tested it much, but it wasn't working at all without rebooting all my devices.
 
petterihiisila said:
You need to check that the media has multichannel audio in it. YouTube and Apple Music are both 2-channel, stereo. It can’t add more channels to that. Also, the app needs to use Apple’s standard APIs to play back the media.

Bottom line: Not limited to ATV+ only. Verified by many people already. Don’t know on what basis some people claim it only supports ATV+ content, as if it was some kind of lock-in ploy. Not true.

If anything, this gives pressure to YouTube to start supporting multichannel audio. They’ve got a Premium subscription after all. Same for Netflix, though in their case I suspect that they use non-standard playback APIs and need to update them.
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From what I can tell, Spatial Audio works with anything encoded with Dolby Digital 5.1, 7.1, or Atmos. It doesn't do anything at all with any other source. As you said, YouTube doesn't work with it at all. I can understand why Apple requires Dolby Digital, but maybe someday they'll add something for simple 2.1 stereo.
 
2013.1 said:
What does automatic switching need to work?

my Airpods 2 are on 3A283

When I’m listening to music on iPhone SE and iPad Pro 12,9 1stgen nothing switches

Edit: At least iOS and iPadOS 14 I assume.
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I got switching to work on my 1st Gen iPad Pro but not spatial audio. Also can't get spatial audio on 2020 MBP (does it work with Big Sur)?
 
The auto switching works between iPhone/iPad and iPhone -> MacBook / iPad -> MacBook, but it doesn't switch back from the MacBook to iPhone / iPad. A bummer.
 
AppleUser2 said:
I got switching to work on my 1st Gen iPad Pro but not spatial audio. Also can't get spatial audio on 2020 MBP (does it work with Big Sur)?
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Unfortunately you would need either an iPad Pro 12.9‑inch (3rd generation) and later, iPad Pro 11‑inch, iPad Air (3rd generation), iPad (6th generation) and later, or iPad mini (5th generation) for Spatial audio to work
 
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ExcelTronic said:
Unfortunately you would need either an iPad Pro 12.9‑inch (3rd generation) and later, iPad Pro 11‑inch, iPad Air (3rd generation), iPad (6th generation) and later, or iPad mini (5th generation) for Spatial audio to work
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Thanks, that's a pain and I think as others have said a bit strange from Apple. I've searched RE MBP - I get auto switching to work very well but no spatial audio.
 
is it only certain devices that get spatial audio? i have an XS on ios 14 latest beta got nothing case has charged overnight and still nothing
 
Homme said:
SE 2020 supports spatial audio, though I don’t know why you don’t have it on yours paired with an AirPods Pro
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I'm not seeing where Apple says SE 2020 supports spatial audio. (Checked the iPhone "compare" page)

My initial guess is only devices with four speaker (ie. dual stereo) arrays will support spatial audio, as is the case with Dolby Atmos support. Unfortunately, this requirement leaves out low-end iPads, and even the seemingly-capable iPhone X models.
 
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