Apple has posted a new video on its Apple Music app on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS which hints towards some new announcement. The video title says ‘Get ready – music is about to change forever’ but the video itself does not show anything apart from an Apple Music logo that spins around in 3D. If anything, the spinning effect reminds us of old Windows screensavers.
Apple Music builds up excitement by teasing new announcement
All signs point towards this announcement being Apple Music HiFi, the company’s rumored high-fidelity audio quality option that is expected to roll out to all Apple Music subscribers. Unlike the competition, Apple would no the charging additional costs for the audio quality bump.
Apple Music announcement teaser video looks like a Windows screensaver. pic.twitter.com/dX94HbYIpR
— Imran Hussain (@imhassan) May 17, 2021
The Apple Music video spinning effect hints towards a spatial 3D audio experience for Music, perhaps similar to Sony’s 360 audio feature. This has been confirmed via references to ‘Dolby Atmos’ and ‘Dolby Audio’ in the Apple Music web app (as found by 9to5Mac), and previously in iOS 14.6 beta 1.
Apple is also expected to introduce lossless music streaming and downloads as part of the announcement. Thanks to the Apple Music beta for Android, we already know the sound quality that will be offered as part of these new lossless streaming formats:
- Lossless: 24-bit/48 kHz (approximately 36 MB for 3-minute song)
- Hi-res lossless: 24-bit/192 kHz (approximately 145 MB for 3-minute song)
Apple will be using ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) for its lossless audio.
Last week, a rumor had pegged May 18 as the launch date for Apple Music HiFi and AirPods 3, however, the rumor has been dismissed by other sources that have proven to be reliable in the past. Still, it is expected that both of the announcements are expected anytime in the coming weeks. The most important question that no leaker has answered so far is whether Apple Music HiFi will support lossless audio playback with AirPods and HomePod or not. If not, that will be a weird situation for Apple to be in, where its own audio accessories would not be compatible with its service. However, we would not be surprised if Apple somehow rolls out software updates for AirPods and HomePod to support lossless streaming.
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