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iOS15/WWDC June 7th
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Listening here to some Lossless/Atmos stuff on my MacBook Pro via an Arturia Audiofuse audio interface that's capable of 24-bit/192 kHz, and a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro 80 Ohm headphones. I'm absolutely no audiophile, but I use this setup for music production.
Big difference in the clarity and detail of the top quality Lossless streams compared to Lossless turned off.
Not sure what the story is with Atmos. Having it On (or Automatic) makes the audio much quieter. When I turn it up on the Audiofuse to compensate, I get some better spatial separation in some of the instruments. Now, these are obviously stereo headphones with just one driver in each ear, but the point of Atmos was is that it uses software trickery that doesn't require actual multiple drivers. It seems that you either get Atmos or Lossless (the "Kind" in Get Info > File changes from "Lossless Audio" to "Dolby Atmos" depending on the settings. They don't mention what the sample or bit rate of the Atmos stuff is (at least in Apple Music itself, it's probably documented somewhere).
Also it's interesting that even the albums that have the Atmos and Lossless icons on them aren't necessiarly completely available in these formats. I'm listening to The Weeknd "After Hours" at the moment, and if you look in Get Info > File, you'll see that some songs (e.g Blinding Lights) have a "Kind" that mentions whether it's playing in Atmos or Lossless, and others (e.g Save Your Tears) don't (and just mention that it's a 44.100 kHz 256 kbps stream).
Edit: but strangely, they use Save Your Tears for one of the demos in the "Introducing Spatial Audio" demo in Apple Music, which compares the Stereo version with the Spatial Audio version (and there is a big difference). Not sure why the SA version isn't showing up on my Mac on the album itself.0 -
I am far from an audiophile - but just tried a couple of Atmos / Lossless tracks on my iPhone 12 Pro and AirPod Max ... and I can really notice the difference. Listening to Drive from REM and you really pick up everything0
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They haven't been touting iPad as a replacement for the Mac, they have been clear about that for years, clearly the point of continuity is as a companion for the Mac. Thats all they want.
I guess we have to agree to disagree. But when you sell an iPad with 16GB of memory and a desktop chip in it; one would expect the software to be inline with the hardware.0 -
I am far from an audiophile - but just tried a couple of Atmos / Lossless tracks on my iPhone 12 Pro and AirPod Max ... and I can really notice the difference.
Lossless will not work with any wireless headphones. Limits of the Bluetooth spec...I’m using the AirPods Pro’s so I’m obviously not able to try proper lossless. I can say I hear a small improvement. Not night or day or anything, but the music feels warmer if that makes sense.
The only way to realistically determine the difference between lossless and lossy is to do a blind test. One tool to do that is Apple's free AUlab, available here.
I did that a few years ago, and, while I was able to often identify which is which, I found that AAC is surprisingly close to lossless audio. Impossible to hear the difference, unless you have very good speakers or headphones.
The audible difference between cheap and good speakers is much larger than the difference between 256k AAC and 16bit/44k wav (as in CDs).
When it comes to 'hi-res' uncompressed audio - there is a difference between 16bit and 24bit - every recording studio uses 24bit during recording and mixing, then, as a last step, reduces word length and dithers, to get 16bit.
The bit depth determines the dynamic range (quietest to loudest signal), sample rate determines which frequencies are available (44k sample rate > highest available frequency is 22kHz, just above the limit of a young person's hearing).
With sample rates, theoretically there should be no audible difference between hearing 44k and 96k if the converters are designed properly. But some converters are designed to sound better at 96k, for marketing reasons.
Anything higher than 96k can actually be detrimental for the audio quality.
(Source: pdf from Dan Lavry, who designs high end converters widely used in professional recording studios).
When you upsample audio that was recorded at 44k, there is, obviously, no improvement - you cannot recover ultra high frequency content that is not there in the first place.
AFAIK, most professional recording studios still record at 44k (48k for film), with some using 88k or 96k. 192k is not common with professionals.
And - most microphones used in the recording studio don't pick up much, if anything, above 22k. Most specs of microphone list 20-22k as upper limit.0 -
The Spatial Audio works as expected, turning your head makes it seems like the audio is coming from the side. I’d tried it once before with Apple TV, it’s much handier with music though.
I don't think the Spatial Audio for music supporters any kind of head tracking (the way it does for movie audio). I think it's just a "3D" soundstage, where elements of the audio are positioned in a 3D space around your head. It would get a bit disconcerting if the music kept moving around as you walked or ran in the street. With movie audio, you have a frame of reference (the screen) that makes sense in relation to moving your head. With pure audio, there's isn't such a frame of reference (outside of your head). Which is why Spatial Audio for music is supported by any headphones, whereas that for movies is only supported by AirPods with sensors for head tracking.0 -
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It's mad how times have changed, 4-5 years ago this thread would have been 10-15 pages deep, it's now sitting at 3. Which is what I'd expect for the week before an event.
This probably lends itself well to Murpho's point on what can be done that's truly ground breaking.
A few of my thoughts though:
1. Overall a good show and a lot of features do seem reactionary to the pandemic, some of them won't catch on but the improvements to FaceTime like screen sharing etc will make family tech support calls much easier.
2. Updates to iOS are now more blurred than ever, if one OS (macOS/iPadOS/WatchOS/iOS) gets a feature, they all get said feature in some shape or form. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just muddies the message and probably helps that "meh" feeling some people are having.
3. A lot of the things mentioned from being a zoom competitor to text detection to OMGZ Apple has reinvented a VPN are all things that other platforms have done for years and done better in some and worse in others but more importantly there's an Apple version now and users have the choice in choosing. Apple Maps has come a long way, I still but heads with it's Places of Interest data say 1 in 5 times, but beforehand it was 4 in 5 times. This is enough of an improvement in Apple Maps as it excels in everything else "for me". I still have the choice of opening up Google/Waze/etc if I so wish and I still do for certain locations.
4. Lossless and Spatial are good additions, nice to get them at no extra cost.
5. Disappointed - but deep down knew - at the iPad updates. I thought we would have been shown why the new iPad Pro's got M1 chips, we didn't. The iPad updates though are nice quality of life improvements at the same time though. With a lot of this stuff a lot things can be both true.
I have thoughts on the developer stuff as a developer but that'll bore the arse everyone :pac:0 -
Creamy Goodness wrote: »5. Disappointed - but deep down knew - at the iPad updates. I thought we would have been shown why the new iPad Pro's got M1 chips, we didn't. The iPad updates though are nice quality of life improvements at the same time though. With a lot of this stuff a lot things can be both true.
I'd say we won't see the fruit of the M1 chips in iPads until more (or most or all) of the line move over to them. If they were to do it now, it would effectively fragment the line into two platforms with different capabilities.0 -
Creamy Goodness wrote: »It's mad how times have changed, 4-5 years ago this thread would have been 10-15 pages deep, it's now sitting at 3. Which is what I'd expect for the week before an event.
This probably lends itself well to Murpho's point on what can be done that's truly ground breaking.
A few of my thoughts though:
1. Overall a good show and a lot of features do seem reactionary to the pandemic, some of them won't catch on but the improvements to FaceTime like screen sharing etc will make family tech support calls much easier.
2. Updates to iOS are now more blurred than ever, if one OS (macOS/iPadOS/WatchOS/iOS) gets a feature, they all get said feature in some shape or form. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just muddies the message and probably helps that "meh" feeling some people are having.
3. A lot of the things mentioned from being a zoom competitor to text detection to OMGZ Apple has reinvented a VPN are all things that other platforms have done for years and done better in some and worse in others but more importantly there's an Apple version now and users have the choice in choosing. Apple Maps has come a long way, I still but heads with it's Places of Interest data say 1 in 5 times, but beforehand it was 4 in 5 times. This is enough of an improvement in Apple Maps as it excels in everything else "for me". I still have the choice of opening up Google/Waze/etc if I so wish and I still do for certain locations.
4. Lossless and Spatial are good additions, nice to get them at no extra cost.
5. Disappointed - but deep down knew - at the iPad updates. I thought we would have been shown why the new iPad Pro's got M1 chips, we didn't. The iPad updates though are nice quality of life improvements at the same time though. With a lot of this stuff a lot things can be both true.
I have thoughts on the developer stuff as a developer but that'll bore the arse everyone :pac:
Mostly agree. Seems like it's mostly improvements of what we already have this year. Nothing as fundamental as, say, APFS a few years ago.
As for your developer perspective: please don't hold back. I often find that what is going on 'under the hood' is much more interesting than the end user facing announcements.0 -
Unicorn Milk Latte wrote: »Mostly agree. Seems like it's mostly improvements of what we already have this year. Nothing as fundamental as, say, APFS a few years ago.
As of your developer perspective: please don't hold back. I often find that what is going on 'under the hood' much more interesting than the end user facing announcements.
Ok cool but bear in mind I haven't had a chance to watch any sessions or even the State of the union talks and a lot of this information would be gotten second hand from other developers on Twitter/Slack's I'm in.
Xcode cloud looks absolutely super, this was tech that buddy build had about 5-6 years ago and they disappeared with Apple bought them 4~ years ago. I had resigned myself into thinking they were acqui-hired but it looks well integrated and solves a lot of pain points developers have around releasing apps to the App Store. I didn't see how well it worked for enterprise apps which is where I'd really be interested to see.
Xcode 13 UI got a nice new lick of paint, new colour and icons in the side bar makes it very visual for me to find what I want. You can also minimise warnings at build time super useful if you have 3rd party SDKs in your projects that have warnings and you can't necessarily just fix them yourself.
New Async/await stuff, ObjectiveC had it for donkeys, it's now here in Swift form. Async/await was why a few developers I know held out on swift, this is great albeit long time coming.
APIs to create those split panel view controllers you see in the likes of Apple Maps and Find My. They seem to be a hot topic in terms of UI/UX at the moment being able to create them using Apple's APIs rather than yet another 3rd party dependency is a nice addition.
Xcode 13 will auto-import frameworks as needed, no more typing class SuperDuperView: View and having the compiler scream at you cause you haven't imported SwiftUI, it just imports it.
UIImage gets an Async option, (a view that will automatically download an image from a URL and place it in the view when it's downloaded) again another 3rd party dependency gone!
Testflight for Mac, again long time coming and a huge... finally from me.
It might take me a few years to be able to use these (as I support a lot of legacy apps) but to see these amounts of improvements in one year when all of us were working from home is huge.0 -
Unicorn Milk Latte wrote: »Lossless will not work with any wireless headphones. Limits of the Bluetooth spec...
The only way to realistically determine the difference between lossless and lossy is to do a blind test. One tool to do that is Apple's free AUlab, available here.
I did that a few years ago, and, while I was able to often identify which is which, I found that AAC is surprisingly close to lossless audio. Impossible to hear the difference, unless you have very good speakers or headphones.
The audible difference between cheap and good speakers is much larger than the difference between 256k AAC and 16bit/44k wav (as in CDs).
When it comes to 'hi-res' uncompressed audio - there is a difference between 16bit and 24bit - every recording studio uses 24bit during recording and mixing, then, as a last step, reduces word length and dithers, to get 16bit.
The bit depth determines the dynamic range (quietest to loudest signal), sample rate determines which frequencies are available (44k sample rate > highest available frequency is 22kHz, just above the limit of a young person's hearing).
With sample rates, theoretically there should be no audible difference between hearing 44k and 96k if the converters are designed properly. But some converters are designed to sound better at 96k, for marketing reasons.
Anything higher than 96k can actually be detrimental for the audio quality.
(Source: pdf from Dan Lavry, who designs high end converters widely used in professional recording studios).
When you upsample audio that was recorded at 44k, there is, obviously, no improvement - you cannot recover ultra high frequency content that is not there in the first place.
AFAIK, most professional recording studios still record at 44k (48k for film), with some using 88k or 96k. 192k is not common with professionals.
And - most microphones used in the recording studio don't pick up much, if anything, above 22k. Most specs of microphone list 20-22k as upper limit.
the sound improvement is very noticeable on my dolby atmos soundbar when playing music from the apple tv 4k box0 -
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I’m surprised Apple aren’t making more of a big deal about th change to lossless. Surely there’s a sizeable chunk of the market that are with Tidal for that very reason?
It’s a pretty bit deal imo and the fact that it’s at no extra cost is a huge selling point.
Better quality streaming now than Spotify and on a par with Tidal at half the price.
Anyway surely Spotify and Tidal will have to react.0 -
the sound improvement is very noticeable on my dolby atmos soundbar when playing music from the apple tv 4k box
Just to be clear - I was talking exclusively about the quality of stereo audio.
Spacial audio, like Dolby Atmos, is something entirely different. Very interesting, and I would expect something played back in Dolby Atmos to sound very different to plain stereo playback.0 -
I guess we have to agree to disagree. But when you sell an iPad with 16GB of memory and a desktop chip in it; one would expect the software to be inline with the hardware.
It doesn't have a desktop chip in it. That is a general purpose chip. And the ARM chips were probably better than intel on smaller devices for years now.
The software on the iPad is not ever going to be a replacement for the Mac. They are two distinct paradigms.0 -
lol.
It’s awful. It’s at least 10 years behind google. I have to say of all the things Apple do, by a massive distance maps is by far the worst.
As for whoever said Maps is as good as Google in Ireland, I’ve some snake oil here I’d like to sell you.
Apple Maps, in 2021, is the worst maps product on the market. It’s not even close.
Not sure that the other options are. I use google maps and Apple maps interchangeably and there is no difference in my use cases, which is largely searching for destinations and driving to them. Look around is pretty good as well .0 -
lol.
It’s awful. It’s at least 10 years behind google. I have to say of all the things Apple do, by a massive distance maps is by far the worst.
As for whoever said Maps is as good as Google in Ireland, I’ve some snake oil here I’d like to sell you.
Apple Maps, in 2021, is the worst maps product on the market. It’s not even close.
Sorry but you just seem to love bashing Apple apps.
I've seen you on here plenty of times here stating that Apple Music, Podcasts and Maps are garbage, rubbish etc.
You seem to dismiss any updates and changes immediately as rubbish.
I've been using Music for a numbers now and I find it excellent.
Maps, had very well at launch that we all know about and cost senior management their jobs but to say that it's 10 years behind Google and the worst map product on the market is just hyperbole.
The app has improved no end over the last few years. It navigates well also has a pretty natural and normal sounding Irish navigation voice.
It's new "Look around" feature whilst not fully complete, is slicker and faster than Google's Street view.
I think they've done a good job and it will only get better and the competition is good as it keeps Google making improvements too.0 -
Sorry but you just seem to love bashing Apple apps.
I've seen you on here plenty of times here stating that Apple Music, Podcasts and Maps are garbage, rubbish etc.
You seem to dismiss any updates and changes immediately as rubbish.
I've been using Music for a numbers now and I find it excellent.
Maps, had very well at launch that we all know about and cost senior management their jobs but to say that it's 10 years behind Google and the worst map product on the market is just hyperbole.
The app has improved no end over the last few years. It navigates well also has a pretty natural and normal sounding Irish navigation voice.
It's new "Look around" feature whilst not fully complete, is slicker and faster than Google's Street view.
I think they've done a good job and it will only get better and the competition is good as it keeps Google making improvements too.
It is absolutely rubbish. Yea I'm not a fan of Music and I accept that's my opinion, but Maps is just a very poor product.
Saving an address and then looking it up just does not work.
I open Maps, search for my address, it finds it no problem. I then click the button to save it to my contact. Then I go to my contact, click on the address that it saves and it can't find it in Maps! The exact same address, type it in manually it works fine, open it from contacts it doesn't work. It's not a weird address either, completely normal number streetname and eircode address.
My work address has been there years. Google no issues. Apple struggles. If I save it, it doesn't work at all.
Apple Maps thinks my car is parked 1.2km away right now. In reality it's parked in my driveway.
This stuff is just basic and it doesn't work. Google works flawlessly, every time. They are miles behind. If this wasn't made by Apple it'd be slated, but because it has that Apple label on the front it gets a bit of a free ride.0 -
Just checked again, my employer has two buildings, Apple can't tell them apart. It thinks they both have the same address and the same eircode. It can't find the building I work in no matter what I search for (the building has been there for years), but if I manually zoom the map to it it's clearly labelled and it knows it's there.
Google no issues.
Really basic things.0 -
The screen sharing will be handy for talking through family members, when you get the dread call asking how do I do x or y.0
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I really wish they'd release iMessage for Androids, especially with their new privacy push.
I don't know a single person who uses iMessage and the biggest reason it's not widely adopted is that it only works on Apple products. It is the best placed service to replace WhatsApp if they opened it up and I reckon there's loads of opportunity there.
It's good enough that I'd switch to using it if they made it available, but it's not good enough that people will buy an iPhone to get it. It doesn't make any sense to me why it's restricted to Apple products, but maybe it's a lot more popular in the states than it is here and they are happy with their lot for now.0 -
It is absolutely rubbish. Yea I'm not a fan of Music and I accept that's my opinion, but Maps is just a very poor product.
Saving an address and then looking it up just does not work.
I open Maps, search for my address, it finds it no problem. I then click the button to save it to my contact. Then I go to my contact, click on the address that it saves and it can't find it in Maps! The exact same address, type it in manually it works fine, open it from contacts it doesn't work. It's not a weird address either, completely normal number streetname and eircode address.
My work address has been there years. Google no issues. Apple struggles. If I save it, it doesn't work at all.
Apple Maps thinks my car is parked 1.2km away right now. In reality it's parked in my driveway.
This stuff is just basic and it doesn't work. Google works flawlessly, every time. They are miles behind. If this wasn't made by Apple it'd be slated, but because it has that Apple label on the front it gets a bit of a free ride.
Strange to me as I use the contact function and it works no problem.
After reading your post I just searched an address of a friend. found it, addedt to contacts.
Then went to contact, address is there, selected it and I can get directions.
So I don't know what you can't do it.
Anyhow, I'm not saying Apple Maps is perfect but it has certainly improved over the years, just like Apple Music has, and to say they're rubbish or 10 years behind is just unfair and I think you should give them more credit.0 -
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I really wish they'd release iMessage for Androids, especially with their new privacy push.
I don't know a single person who uses iMessage and the biggest reason it's not widely adopted is that it only works on Apple products. It is the best placed service to replace WhatsApp if they opened it up and I reckon there's loads of opportunity there.
It's good enough that I'd switch to using it if they made it available, but it's not good enough that people will buy an iPhone to get it. It doesn't make any sense to me why it's restricted to Apple products, but maybe it's a lot more popular in the states than it is here and they are happy with their lot for now.
I think you got it when you mentioned the US.
iMessage is huge there and it does sell iPhones. Blue Bubble is a thing there. From what I understand hardly anyone uses Whats App in the US.
I don't get the popularity of What's App, apart from the cross platform functionality I don't think it's a great app and the privacy is terrible on it .
iMessage wins hands down but even iPhone users here keep resorting to What's App.0 -
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I really wish they'd release iMessage for Androids, especially with their new privacy push.
Wait, isn't that a contradiction? Why would anyone who decides to use Android care about privacy? The whole business model of Google is that you exchange your private data for a 'free' service, like Gmail or Android, so it can be monetised for advertising.
To be clear - I'm not criticising Google's business model. To offer 'free' email, under the condition that the email content can be harvested for advertising, is a perfectly legitimate way to do business. Google does not, by any means, make their practices a secret, and if users consent, all is fine.0 -
The best messaging app will be whatever one the majority of your contacts are on. For the vast majority that’s WhatsApp. There’s no point in using something where you can’t message anyone.0
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Gregor Samsa wrote: »I'd say we won't see the fruit of the M1 chips in iPads until more (or most or all) of the line move over to them. If they were to do it now, it would effectively fragment the line into two platforms with different capabilities.
I think this tweet explains why people’s expectations were higher despite it just being a typical upgrade like the generation before
https://twitter.com/reneritchie/status/1402301635704115202?s=210 -
Unicorn Milk Latte wrote: »Wait, isn't that a contradiction? Why would anyone who decides to use Android care about privacy? The whole business model of Google is that you exchange your private data for a 'free' service, like Gmail or Android, so it can be monetised for advertising.
To be clear - I'm not criticising Google's business model. To offer 'free' email, under the condition that the email content can be harvested for advertising, is a perfectly legitimate way to do business. Google does not, by any means, make their practices a secret, and if users consent, all is fine.
You're being too simplistic. There is only iOS or Android. Picking Android doesn't mean you don't care about privacy.
Lots of people don't like iOS, even more can't afford an iPhone (remember you can buy Android's for practically no money at all).0 -
The “Android isn’t secure or private” thing is so old hat that it’s just lazy at this stage anyway. If you like iOS devices then you like iOS devices, you don’t need to treat Apple like there your favourite sports team to justify it though. I use them myself, they’re great, I might get an Android phone again some day and maybe I won’t.0
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ReginaldSmythV wrote: »The best messaging app will be whatever one the majority of your contacts are on. For the vast majority that’s WhatsApp. There’s no point in using something where you can’t message anyone.
The most used app may not mean the best.
The point is that an awful lot of iPhone users here use What's App instead of iMessage whilst in the US it's the reverse.0 -
The most used app may not mean the best.
The point is that an awful lot of iPhone users here use What's App instead of iMessage whilst in the US it's the reverse.
Yea but the main reason is that iMessage only works with Apple. It's not that WhatsApp is excellent, it just works better for the purpose since practically everyone has it.0 -
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A messaging app that will only let you message half of your contacts is not particularly useful. I have an iPad and Mac but use an android phone, would have no interest in using iMessage if I switched to iPhone. I had a look at my iPad there and apparently it's been running on it for the past two years, never even realised.0
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