Late on Monday night, Apple added two new features for its Apple Music subscription service: immersive Dolby Atmos spatial audio and lossless-quality streaming.
WHAT IS SPATIAL AUDIO FOR MUSIC?
It makes you feel like you’re onstage, standing right next to the singer, it makes you feel like you might be to the left of the drummer, to the right of the guitarist. On its website, Apple says “music created in Dolby Atmos is freed from channels, allowing artists to place individual sounds all around you.”
Spatial audio gives music a unique feeling. And it’s in a different way than a high-end pair of headphones might bring the most out of a stereo track’s soundstage. In particular, vocals often have a very distinct placement in the mix and cut through better than on traditional stereo tracks.
HOW MANY SONGS ARE AVAILABLE IN DOLBY ATMOS SPATIAL AUDIO?
Apple says that “thousands” of tracks are available with spatial audio at launch, with many more on the way.”
HOW DO you KNOW WHEN your HEARING SPATIAL AUDIO ON APPLE MUSIC?
You’ll see either a Dolby Atmos or Dolby Audio logo appear on the Now Playing screen beneath the album artwork.
Note: if the tracks don’t initially play as Dolby Atmos, try browsing to them from Apple’s new playlists like made for spatial audio, hits in spatial audio, plus genre-specific playlists for pop, rock, hip-hop, country, and others.
DO you NEED AIRPODS OR BEATS HEADPHONES FOR APPLE MUSIC SPATIAL AUDIO?
No. Apple Music’s spatial audio works on All headphones and earbuds, loudspeakers on supported iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple TV 4K
If you set Dolby Atmos to “always on” in settings for the Music app, you’ll see a pop-up advising that it probably won’t sound right on all speakers, but Apple Music will still play the spatial audio mix if that’s your preference. In fact, Apple states that you can “listen on any headphones” to Apple Music’s spatial audio.
HOW DO you TURN OFF APPLE MUSIC SPATIAL AUDIO IF you DON’T LIKE IT?
iOS and iPadOS: Go to Settings > Music > Dolby Atmos (under “audio”), and there you can pick between automatic, always on, and off.
If you’d prefer to leave Atmos on by default but want to quickly switch to a regular stereo version of any song that’s playing, just pull down Control Center, press and hold on the volume slider, and toggle off spatial audio. Apple Music will switch over to stereo. If you turn spatial audio back on, you’ll return to the Atmos track.
macOS: In the Music app, open preferences and select the “playback” tab. Halfway down you’ll see an “audio quality” section and Atmos is in there. You get the same three automatic / always on / off choices as on Apple’s mobile devices.
Apple Music’s spatial audio is currently much different from the spatial audio experience you get when watching movies and TV shows on an iPhone or iPad. For videos, Apple includes a head-tracking feature that adjusts the sound placement as you turn your head to keep it anchored to the source device. This trick is exclusive to the AirPods lineup, but it’s a very impressive effect.
Apple has said it plans to bring this sound-changes-as-you-turn-your-head feature to Apple Music in the fall — likely with iOS 15.
