Apple officially announces special event for April 20: ‘Spring Loaded’

OU812

peteeeed wrote: »

the apple hifi link on the browse tab of the app

https://music.apple.com/ie/post/1566904618
'get ready music is about to change forever '

https://twitter.com/LeaksApplePro/status/1394190835898589184?s=20

To me, that indicates spatial sound on Apple Music rather than "Hi-Fi" (uncompressed). Tidal has had spatial for a while and it's apparently quite the experience. Apple is very about spatial with their headphones.

peteeeed

OU812 wrote: »

To me, that indicates spatial sound on Apple Music rather than "Hi-Fi" (uncompressed). Tidal has had spatial for a while and it's apparently quite the experience. Apple is very about spatial with their headphones.

i think there's going to be a lot of explaining and an update to the max and pro's and then a few days of .....' is this hifi? '

Bob24

Looks like a “lossless” logo has been added to the Apple Music website ressources: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/17/apple-music-lossless-logo/

Wondering what the pricing will be …

Creamy Goodness

Bob24 wrote: »

Looks like a “lossless” logo has been added to the Apple Music website ressources: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/17/apple-music-lossless-logo/

Wondering what the pricing will be …

be a nice move if they did 9.99 for lossless and everyone paying 9.99 currently gets lossless and intro a new plan at 7.99 or something. that way majority of people stay paying 9.99 and they gain a ****-ton of customers moving from other providers for a price cut.

this would be atypical for Apple though so I doubt it

murpho999

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

be a nice move if they did 9.99 for lossless and everyone paying 9.99 currently gets lossless and intro a new plan at 7.99 or something. that way majority of people stay paying 9.99 and they gain a ****-ton of customers moving from other providers for a price cut.

this would be atypical for Apple though so I doubt it

Also, just as people may not know, instead of paying €9.99 a month Apple offer an annual sub for €99 a year so bringing it down to €8.25 a month or effectively 2 months for free. I think it's a great deal that's hidden withen the subs section on the phone.

Bob24

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

be a nice move if they did 9.99 for lossless and everyone paying 9.99 currently gets lossless and intro a new plan at 7.99 or something. that way majority of people stay paying 9.99 and they gain a ****-ton of customers moving from other providers for a price cut.

this would be atypical for Apple though so I doubt it

Yes, would be nice but I also thing it is unlikely. This is not my base case, but one thing they could also be doing is just include lossless in the standard plan instead of creating a 2-tiers model, in order to keep things simple for users (and the question if they were to do this would be: can they do it while keeping the same price, or would it mean the price is increasing).

Zhane

They did upgrade all available movies to 4K at no extra cost to movies bought via iTunes. So there is a case of Apple upgrading customers at no extra cost to the consumer. The price of a phone or iPad may go up to compensate for it tho 😂

Bob24

Zhane wrote: »

They did upgrade all available movies to 4K at no extra cost to movies bought via iTunes. So there is a case of Apple upgrading customers at no extra cost to the consumer. The price of a phone or iPad may go up to compensate for it tho ��

Yep this is actually what I had in mind and why I wouldn’t rule it out. I am not sure it is fully comparable though, as here we are talking streaming service, and while Apple has a lot of leverage it would have been hard to convince/force record companies to distribute higher quality files without increasing the licensing costs (but if Apple managed to do that it would be good news for users of other streaming services as well, as I don’t think it would be sustainable for record companies to grant this type of pricing only for Apple).

Doodah7

murpho999 wrote: »

Also, just as people may not know, instead of paying €9.99 a month Apple offer an annual sub for €99 a year so bringing it down to €8.25 a month or effectively 2 months for free. I think it's a great deal that's hidden withen the subs section on the phone.

This is how I pay for Apple Music. A great deal in my opinion. I only wish they did something similar for the family sub.

Zhane

Everyone getting it at no extra cost! I’ll take that!

https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/17/apple-music-announces-it-is-bringing-lossless-audio-to-entire-catalog-at-no-extra-cost-spatial-audio-features/

Gregor Samsa

^^ says the regular AirPods and Beats (anything with a W1/H1 chip) are getting Spatial Audio too. I wonder will this extend to movies in Dolby Atmos?

awec

Being used to lure as many existing Spotify customers to Apple as they can rather than try sell new Apple products.

Creamy Goodness

Such a weird announcement, like announcing it with AirPods max would have made sense. Similarly a 20 second advert during the spring loaded event (shave the time off the Apple TV+ trailers), would have been a better time.

Now it looks like they're getting it out there as they'll have zero time to announce it at WWDC.

In saying all that, nice that it's included for free

peteeeed

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

Such a weird announcement, like announcing it with AirPods max would have made sense. Similarly a 20 second advert during the spring loaded event (shave the time off the Apple TV+ trailers), would have been a better time.

Now it looks like they're getting it out there as they'll have zero time to announce it at WWDC.

In saying all that, nice that it's included for free

i wonder whether spotify announcing there were going 'hifi' hurried them along

Bob24

awec wrote: »

Being used to lure as many existing Spotify customers to Apple as they can rather than try sell new Apple products.

I’d expect we’ll see the same thing coming to Spotify (certainly Spotify wi t want to leave this competitive advantage to Apple and will ask record companies for the same deal).

peteeeed

Zhane wrote: »

Everyone getting it at no extra cost! I’ll take that!

https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/17/apple-music-announces-it-is-bringing-lossless-audio-to-entire-catalog-at-no-extra-cost-spatial-audio-features/

tidal is 25 euro a month for more or less the same thing ?

Bob24

peteeeed wrote: »

tidal is 25 euro a month for more or less the same thing ?

Not sure of the exact price, but yes more money for something similar. Streaming services using audio quality as a competitive advantage won’t like this development. In Europe Qobuz will also be hit.

I see Amazon Music have already announce lossless will be available at no extra cost. I think it was become standard across the board.

OU812

Called it on spatial. Lossless for no extra charge is nice too. So long Spotify

Bob24

Confirmation that no device in the current AirPod lineup will support lossless audio: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/17/airpods-apple-music-lossless-audio/

I’d expect updated versions by the end of the year which do support it :-)

FourFourRED

https://twitter.com/snazzyq/status/1394331959766110213?s=21

Bob24

FourFourRED wrote: »

https://twitter.com/snazzyq/status/1394331959766110213?s=21

Agree it’s not surprising (I had mentioned before that the only support SBC and AAC). But anyone saying that not supporting it doesn’t matter is essentially saying that Apple’s lossless audio is a useless gimmick (if in his opinion Apple’s new Hi-Fi files would make no difference over 256 AAC with Apple’s top of the line 500 euros AirPod Max … why is Apple even supporting it?).

Personally I think we’ll see a new version of the AirPod Max in a few months time with support for lossless audio, and we will be told it does make a difference.

Doodah7

https://www.macworld.com/article/346595/no-one-actually-needs-hi-res-apple-music-audio.html

Personally I think this guy is spot on.

All this lossless quality rubbish is purely a case of marketing and ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. Amazon announced the same thing today also. There is a fear among all these companies that if you don’t have hi-res music or lossless that they will be at a competitive disadvantage. Some of the comments I’ve read today back this up with people saying they will dump Spotify because they don’t have this. This is exactly what they fear.

Above a certain level only the highly trained or the pseuds will notice a ‘difference’.

Edit: another article outlining why this is all a load of puff:

https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/17/comment-will-you-be-able-to-hear-the-difference-with-apple-music-lossless-audio/

awec

Am I missing something or are Apple saying their ridiculously priced Airpod Max's won't support the lossless audio?

That's.... mad?!

murpho999

awec wrote: »

Am I missing something or are Apple saying their ridiculously priced Airpod Max's won't support the lossless audio?

That's.... mad?!

My understanding is that lossless audio doesn't work on any bluetooth headphones and you can't really connect the maxes to phones with cables can you?

Either way , I don' think this lossless thing is such a big deal as others have pointed out.

Spatial Audio looks to be the real good feature.

I'm happy with Apple music, app has really improved over the last few years and I love the suggestions it makes to me.

Bob24

murpho999 wrote: »

My understanding is that lossless audio doesn't work on any bluetooth headphones and you can't really connect the maxes to phones with cables can you?

Either way , I don' think this lossless thing is such a big deal as others have pointed out.

Spatial Audio looks to be the real good feature.

I'm happy with Apple music, app has really improved over the last few years and I love the suggestions it makes to me.

You can actually connect it with cables as the AirPod Max lightning port supports digital audio input (Apple does sell a cable for it but ironically the other end is a 3.5mm jack). And while i don’t think any Bluetooth device currently supports a lossless codec, the likes of AptX-HD and LDAC do support hi-res audio better than the 256kbps AAC Apple is using.

While I don’t think HD and lossless audio are game changers for most people, it is poor form than not one single Apple audio device supports those (especially a pair of 500+ euros headphones). Almost an admission that they don’t find the feature useful.

Standard Bluetooth codecs don’t allow it, but I am sure Apple can figure out something proprietary. In fact I’d suspect that within a year Apple’s marketing will be running at full blast explaining to us how this is a killer feature of the new AirPod Max 2.

awec

murpho999 wrote: »

My understanding is that lossless audio doesn't work on any bluetooth headphones and you can't really connect the maxes to phones with cables can you?

Either way , I don' think this lossless thing is such a big deal as others have pointed out.

Spatial Audio looks to be the real good feature.

I'm happy with Apple music, app has really improved over the last few years and I love the suggestions it makes to me.

I dunno like but I think if I had just dropped 600 euro on a pair of Apple headphones and now it doesn't support lossless audio from Apple I'd be fairly cheesed off.

People are being taken for fools with this crap.

murpho999

awec wrote: »

I dunno like but I think if I had just dropped 600 euro on a pair of Apple headphones and now it doesn't support lossless audio from Apple I'd be fairly cheesed off.

People are being taken for fools with this crap.

I don't think the feature is a big deal but I do find it strange that Apple are making a big deal of it if they don't have products to support it.

However, the headphones people have bought will still work and have the features they like so they're not really missing out on anything.

Agent Coulson

Apple really just laughing in the face of people who bought €600 headphones now making such a huge deal out this.

Look we have this lovely new way to hear music but the headphones you bought won't have it.

Bob24

Even the HomePod won’t support it: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/17/homepod-wont-support-lossless-audio/

No technical justification here as Apple’s own AirPlay protocol has been supporting lossless over WiFi networks for a more than 15 years!

awec

On the Dolby Atmos thing, generally it's absolutely awful for music, so presumably this is something that they're addressing. Are the tracks being remastered for Dolby Atmos?