Malcolm Owen
The Apple Music streaming service is gaining its support for Spatial Audio on Monday, with Apple starting to roll out the feature to subscribers.
Briefly mentioned during the WWDC 2021 keynote, Apple is enabling Spatial Audio in Apple Music. The feature, which was originally announced on May 17 alongside Lossless Audio, was leaked as launching on Monday via the Apple Music app itself over the weekend before the keynote.
"We recently announced spatial audio for Apple Music, with the incredible multi-dimensional sound experience of Dolby Atmos, and we're excited that it's available starting today," said Senior Engineering Program Manager Gagan Gupta.
Apple said "thousands" of songs will use the feature at launch, and name-checked Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, and The Weeknd as musical acts offering tracks with Dolby Atmos support. Listeners will be able to hear the music in a simulated 3D audio space, giving more depth and directionality to audio that adjusts when the user moves their head.
To use Spatial Audio, users need to be using AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, or Beats headphones equipped with the H1 or W1 chip for wireless communications.
Apple Music is not the only app to gain Spatial Audio capabilities. During the keynote, iOS 15 was revealed to add Spatial Audio support to FaceTime, while support will also be incorporated into macOS Monterey and tvOS 15.
Follow all of WWDC 2021 with comprehensive AppleInsider coverage of the week-long event from June 7 through June 11, including details on iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, macOS Monterey and more.
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William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
27 Comments
How does one know if a track has spatial audio?
I can’t see any indication in Music. Is there a particular song anyone knows that works?
there are a ton of articles announcing this but nothing describing how to try it out beyond a mention that some big name artists have unspecified tracks that I guess you’re supposed to go listening for.
Ariana Grande Sessions 3D spatial audio.
Interesting, I was sure I read on MacRumours that the spatial audio would work on non Apple gear by enabling Dolby Atmos in the settings.
**edit **
"To use Spatial Audio, users need to be using AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, or Beats headphones equipped with the H1 or W1 chip for wireless communications. "
I am not sure this makes any sense. Am I just missing something or what?1? It is a stereo mix down of a Dolby Atmos track using delays and eq to simulate a 3D space using stereo headphones. That is all done by the app - Apple Music will simply be sending right channel and left channel audio to headphones. This is not a head tracking kind of thing that requires feedback from the headphones so it should work with any stereo headphones (as the faq on the Apple Music site states). Hopefully it will also output Dolby Atmos tracks to a receiver using Apple TV for real multi channel Dolby Atmos.