In 2015, Apple introduced the Apple Music subscription model, following what Spotify
did years before. Simply pay $10 a month and you’ve got all the music you’ll ever need
at your fingertips.
No more downloading albums and songs from iTunes. You get everything.. All at once.
For $10 a month.
And today, we know that was the right choice because that’s basically how everyone listens
to music these days, with other popular services like Spotify, Amazon Music and Tidal.
And speaking of Tidal, it began as a solution to a problem. At the time, there was no service
out there that offered very high quality streaming straight to your phone or computer.
For many years, people have been complaining about Apple’s streaming codecs bottlenecking
the quality that music was intended to be listened at.
So Tidal finally came in and took care of that, but at a price. To get the high quality
streaming, you had to pay a pretty penny, but for the audiophiles out there, it was
well worth it.
The only problem with high-quality streaming was that it would take up a huge amount of
data bandwidth, and for many years, the speed of cellular service just wasn’t fast enough
to have a really reliable stream on the go.
But today.. Things are way different. Basically every cellular plan gives you unlimited data..
And many phones, including the iPhone 12, offer super-fast 5G cellular speeds.
And because of that, Apple is ready to revolutionize the music industry!
Just the other day, they announced their new Lossless audio formats coming to Apple Music..
And the best part is that it’s coming at no additional charge.
So if you’re already paying $10 a month for Apple Music, you’re basically ready
to go when Apple pushes out iOS 14.6 and the rest of their software updates next month.
This is all extremely exciting for all of us consumers, but it could also be the downfall
of Tidal, which charges quite a bit more for their high-quality streaming service, while
not offering the same level of features and convenience as Apple Music does.
But before I get into how bad this is for Tidal, I want to explain how these new Lossless
formats are gonna work across all of your Apple devices, and then give you some very
important info that you probably haven’t heard just yet.
First off, Apple’s Spacial Audio feature is coming for free in the form of Dolby Atmos
support to basically every pair of AirPods or Beats headphones that have an H1 or W1
chip, as well as the built-in speakers on compatible iPhones and other Apple devices.
And you’ll even be able to use the new Dolby Atmos feature with other headphones by going
into the audio settings and manually enabling it.
But as far as the new lossless formats, things are definitely a bit confusing, so let me
explain how all of this is gonna work, starting with what Lossless actually means.
When a recording studio produces a song by an artist, they do so in an original uncompressed
format like WAV.
This is basically the master file, which ends up being massive depending on the length of
the song.
For example, in our ultimate headphone comparison between the AirPods Max and the Sony XM4’s,
we received a 24 bit WAV master file from Hi-Fi insider with a sample rate of 176 kHz
and a file size of 560 MB, which is insane!
And the problem with file sizes that large is that a standard CD can only hold around
700 MB of data, barely enough to fit that master file.
Because of this, the industry agreed on a standard format of 16-bit, 44.1kHz WAV audio
which will bring that file size down and allow for much more songs to be burned onto a CD.
But when it comes to on-demand music streaming, those file sizes are still massive and require
a very high data bitrate of 1411 kilobits per second, which would’ve caused issues
back in the day depending on your internet connection as well as using up all of your
cellular data too quickly.
And on top of that, for those who were trying to store hundreds or thousands of songs onto
their phones through iTunes, CD quality was still way too big and it would end up using
up all of your storage, which is an even bigger issue.
So to solve that, the file size and bitrate had to be turned down, so in 2003, Apple offered
their iTunes catalog of music by opting for a 128kbps AAC format, over 10x less than CD
standard bitrate.
This of course, lowered the quality of the music compared to the master file, but it
fixed all of the issues with storage sizes, and later on, it greatly helped with the reliability
of on-demand music streaming using Apple Music.
And then over time, as storage sizes of iPhones and other devices became larger, and as internet
connection speeds and reliability improved, Apple raised the bar for AAC audio file support
up to the 256kbps that we have today.
And now, since we finally have very fast internet connection speeds that are very reliable on
every IPhone, as well as unlimited data on basically every service plan out there, we
can finally move onto better quality music streaming, and that’s what Apple just announced.
Apple is finally offering the Apple Lossless Audio Codec with audio resolutions ranging
from CD quality, which is 16bit at 44.1Khz, all the way up to 24 bit at 48Khz, playable
natively on Apple devices, for the same $10 a month as before.
And for true audiophiles, Apple Music is offering Hi-Fi lossless streaming at up to 24 bit at
192Khz, which is insane, but it’s gonna require external equipment like a USB DAC
just to be able to play it properly.
So these new files are gonna be incredible for those seeking better quality audio, and
it’s gonna lead to a lot of people finally ditching Tidal and going to Apple Music for
the better features and convenience.
Why? Well, Tidal’s #1 advantage and selling point has always been the support for the
highest audio quality streaming compared to other competitors like Apple, but that’s
now gone.
And making it worse, Tidal literally charges $20 a month for their HiFi music subscription
compared to only $10 a month for Apple Music, or just $5 if you’re a student!
Tidal also charges $30 a month for a hifi family plan, compared to only $15 for Apple
Music.
Or if you pay just $5 more a month, you can literally get an Apple One family plan with
Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and 200GB of iCloud storage.
So I see no reason for anyone with an iPhone to continue using Tidal, and that’s why
they’re in so much trouble.
However, if you like to listen to Apple Music using bluetooth headphones or earbuds, all
of these new lossless formats don’t matter at all, since Apple has already confirmed
that all of the current AirPods won’t support Lossless audio.
But don’t blame Apple, it’s 100% a bluetooth limitation, so in order to listen to lossless
audio, you’re gonna need a set of wired earbuds or headphones.
And to do that, they’re either gonna have to come with a Lightning port, or you’re
gonna have to use a Lightning to 3.5mm dongle instead.
But the more important thing is that Apple finally has this lossless audio quality built
directly into Apple Music for the same price, satisfying the audiophiles out there, and
for regular consumers who use AirPods, the new dolby atmos support is gonna be a nice
addition!
And in the future, there’s a chance that we could get some sort of Bluetooth update
that can potentially take advantage of a higher-quality audio stream.
For example, Bluetooth 5.2 now supports LE Audio, which uses a new LC3 codec which improves
battery life and allows for a brand new multi-stream feature which will greatly improve the experience
with certain headphones and truly wireless earbuds.
For example, a device like an iPhone will be able to send two streams of bluetooth to
a pair of headphones or earbuds, one bluetooth stream for the left side and one stream for
the right side.
So there’s a chance that in the future, higher quality audio will be coming to Apple
devices using multi-stream methods like this to improve quality.
On top of that, the LC3 codec has a higher maximum bitrate of 345 kilobits per second,
and it can support bit depths of up to 32 bits instead of AAC’s 16, so there’s a
very good chance that Apple will be taking advantage of this new codec in the future.
The only issue is that there are no Apple devices right now that support BlueTooth 5.2,
which is required in order to take advantage of this new LC3 codec, so I have a pretty
good feeling that Apple has something up their sleeves for later this year.
Specifically, I think that the iPhone 13 is gonna come with Bluetooth 5.2 support, and
I think that the next-gen AirPods are also gonna support it as well, to offer higher
quality audio, maybe even taking advantage of these new lossless formats if Apple can
somehow pull it off by using a new 2nd generation W2 or H2 processing chip.
But for now, we’re gonna have to stick with wired headphones if we wanna listen to Apple’s
new lossless audio feature.
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