After some rumors, confirmation arrives today: the entire Apple Music catalog will be available in lossless encoding at no additional cost starting in June. There are over 75 million songs, in Alac format (the Apple version of the best known Flac).
In addition, the Cupertino-based company is also launching support for Spatial Audio music with tracks encoded in Dolby Atmos. It will be possible to listen to select albums with immersive 3D using AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max and Beats headphones equipped with H1 or W1 chips for spatial coding. According to Apple, several thousand Dolby Atmos encoded songs will already be available in June, and the company is partnering with artists such as Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, Kacey Musgraves and others for the initial launch of Dolby Atmos music. But new songs will be added constantly, and dedicated playlists will soon be available on Apple Music. Albums that support spatial audio will be marked with a new Dolby Atmos logo.
The highest quality
Lossless literally means no loss of quality, unlike Mp3 or Aac which involve a significant loss of audio information; you can choose to listen to music in this format by going to Settings -> Music -> Audio quality. Here you can choose different resolutions for different connections such as cellular, Wi-Fi, or for download. Apple Music’s Lossless level starts at CD quality, which is 16bit at 44.1kHz (kilohertz), and goes up to 24bit at 48kHz and is natively playable on Apple devices. For true audiophiles, Apple Music also offers Hi-Resolution Lossless up to 24-bit at 192kHz
Better at home
In any case, lossless formats require significantly higher bandwidth for streaming and therefore Apple will explicitly ask users if they want to use this format. At the moment it is not even clear if the difference between the two formats is noticeable with the AirPods or if professional wired headphones are not needed. This was what Eddy Cue, vice president and head of Apple’s Internet Software and Services division, told La Stampa years ago: “Everyone thinks that good sound depends on the bitrate, that is the way it is digitized and transmitted, but we have discovered that out of a hundred people perhaps one will notice the difference “. Of course, an adequate system will be needed: and for this reason it seems to us that the novelty of Apple Music is more aimed at home listening than at casual listening on the go.
Apple Music will launch the new lossless and spatial audio features in June, likely alongside the iOS 14.6 update.