Lossless audio and Dolby Atmos support have been available worldwide to users since June. (Photo credit: Saurabh Singh / Financial Express)
Apple Music India subscribers can finally access lossless audio and spatial audio through Dolby Atmos on Apple devices including iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. Both features are now available for free to all Apple Music subscribers in India, including those on the family and student plans. Android users will also benefit from these features soon, although Apple does not yet share a tentative schedule. Lossless audio and Dolby Atmos support have been available worldwide to users since June.
If you are an Apple Music subscriber in India, you will find two new toggles in the app settings menu on your Apple device. One, called audio quality, allows you to enable lossless audio, including high resolution lossless (this will require external hardware). You can choose one of three formats – high quality, lossless, and high resolution – depending on connectivity. So, maybe you can choose high quality when using mobile and lossless data over Wi-Fi. You can also choose to download lossless files. Any content you downloaded previously will remain in the resolution you originally downloaded.
Apple plans to eventually make its entire catalog of more than 75 million songs available in lossless audio. (Photo credit: Saurabh Singh / Financial Express)
Apple warns that “lossless streaming will consume a lot more data” and downloaded files will use “a lot more space on your device”. A three-minute song, for example, will be 6MB with high quality at 256kbps, 36MB lossless at 24-bit / 48kHz, and 145MB with high-resolution lossless at 24-bit / 192kHz on average.
High-quality lossless audio is a big deal considering that more and more streaming services are already on-board or are about to join the train sooner rather than later. Then there’s Tidal. The biggest differentiator, or rather the key selling point of Apple Music, is that it will be available for free to Apple Music subscribers (subscriptions cost Rs 49 per month for students, Rs 99 for individuals and Rs 149 for a family plan).
Apple plans to eventually make its entire catalog of over 75 million songs available in lossless audio, starting with CD quality, which is 16-bit at 44.1 kHz and up to 24-bit at 48. kHz, both playable “natively” on Apple devices. Support for high resolution lossless up to 24-bit at 192kHz is also available for those who can purchase additional hardware like a DAC.
Dolby Atmos music will be accessible on certified content. (Photo credit: Saurabh Singh / Financial Express)
Dolby Atmos is also accessible through its own toggle in the settings of the Apple Music app on your Apple device. You can choose to keep this always on or automatically turn it on when connected to a supported audio accessory like AirPods Pro and AirPods Max.
Apple has previously said that Apple Music will offer thousands of tracks in spatial audio with Dolby Atmos and that it will add more titles on a regular basis.
Dolby Atmos music will be accessible by default on certified content through all AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip, and through the built-in speakers on new iPhones, iPads and Mac computers. Apple also makes this content easily accessible through Dolby Atmos playlists.
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