Amazon Music already offers a lossless streaming option, and Spotify said it will add one this year. But they’re about to get some new competition, courtesy of Apple Music.

Apple hasn’t announced anything yet, and I’m guessing it plans to wait for WWDC next month to do so. But 9to5Mac has found evidence of lossless music streaming coming to Apple Music via iOS 14.6. And 9to5Google has found similar evidence in a beta version of Apple Music for Android.

9to5Mac says it’s found references to “Dolby Atmos,” “Dolby Audio,” and “Lossless” in a beta version of Apple Music in a beta version of iOS. Apple warns users about the increased demands of lossless music, too. Apparently, lossless audio files will use significantly more storage space when downloaded. With 10 GB of space, you can store 200 hi-res lossless songs, compared to 1000 lossless songs or 3000 songs at high quality.

Streaming will introduce similar overhead for data: A 3-minute high-res lossless song at 24-bit/192 kHz quality will consume 145 MB of data, compared to 36 MB for lossless (24-bit/48 kHz) and 6 MB for high quality (256 kbps).

9to5Google, meanwhile, examined a beta version of Apple Music on that platform and discovered references to “HiFi” streaming options. But the Android version of the app doesn’t mention “Dolby Atmos” or “Dolby Audio,” so it’s possible that this support will be limited to Apple’s hardware.

“Lossless audio files preserve every detail of the original file,” Apple explains. “Turning this on will consume significantly more data.”

Tagged with Apple Music