r/apple • u/Century24 • Jan 18 '24

YouTube and Spotify Won’t Launch Apple Vision Pro Apps, Joining Netflix Apple Vision

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-18/youtube-and-spotify-join-netflix-in-not-launching-apple-vision-pro-apps?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy
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126

u/inconspiciousdude Jan 19 '24

Or maybe it's some stats that Spotify wants that Apple doesn't want to allow.

On another note, I tried playing some music on Spotify from Apple TV to HomePod the other day and it sounded terrible compared to Apple Music, even with a Spotify Premium account. Not quite sure why.

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u/timelessblur Jan 19 '24

Another one is Apple api does not feed back required info for Spotify agreements with the rights holder.

Like they would need to know which user playing what so they can charge the right amounts.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '24

[deleted]

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u/itsjust_khris Jan 19 '24

There's no way you'd hear the difference from a Homepod, it's more likely that it was re-encoded very poorly from the Apple Tv to the Homepod.

Even professionals cannot reliably hear the difference between lossless and well encoded lossy files.

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u/xeio87 Jan 19 '24

That digital/analog record scandal in the record scene a few years back was absolutely hilarious to read about. The purists couldn't tell the difference and the company that was making them was even highly recommended. 😂

The audiophile scene is weird.

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u/FlyingLap Jan 19 '24

I can tell but only with headphones. It’s more compression that I think people are experiencing and calling it “sound quality.”

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u/guitarer09 Jan 19 '24

And the majority of people don’t have the gear to hear the difference between a a 320kbps Ogg Vorbis track and a lossless FLAC track. I have a pretty decent rig, and yet the differences are so minute, I’ve switched to 320 almost entirely. I’ve gained drive space, and haven’t at any point in the last year felt like my listening experience has lessened.

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u/BodiesDurag Jan 19 '24

So you’re telling me all that Spatial Audio crap on Apple Music is just a gimmick?

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u/Meowingtons_H4X Jan 19 '24

Are you referring to atmos/5.1 mixes? If so, no that’s different - albeit you’d need a device that can reliably playback (or simulate) a multi speaker setup to hear that properly.

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u/mittortz Jan 19 '24

It's insane to me that you're getting upvoted for this - sorry - but there is absolutely no way in hell that anyone can tell the difference between lossless and high-bitrate compressed files of any kind on their homepod. It's 100% marketing unless you're listening on an extremely high end soundsystem/headphones. It is certainly not the difference they're hearing.

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u/zNz__2321 Jan 19 '24

+1 that lossy / lossless is unlikely to be the root

On the other hand, Apple Digital Masters is what I suspect. Anything that is mastered based on Apple's guidelines gets the "Apple Digital Master" label, which does bake in a lot of psychoacoustics into the music... aka the music has been mastered to sound better to begin with. I'm not sure if Spotify has an equivalent that is as mature.

Nonetheless, I would not be surprised if HomePods are doing some light processing (ie taking into account the sound reflection of your environment, knowing the Digital Master parameters, etc) that will be more pleasing to you

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u/Thechosenjon Jan 19 '24 edited Jan 19 '24

lossless means nothing if it's used over a wireless Bluetooth device, that would still be lossy

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u/cdbaker Jan 19 '24

That is categorically untrue. You're confusing the transmission method with the medium. The most common bluetooth standards don't support lossless - but that doesnt mean there isnt a mechanism for wireless delivery.

If your statement was true, it would mean you couldn't listen to lossless audio over wifi.

In the case of spotify, or any service, there is nothing stopping them from streaming any quality of audio to the speaker for direct playback from the device.

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u/Thechosenjon Jan 19 '24

I was unclear, my fault, I meant over a wireless bluetooth signal like phone to earpod/ headphone or via wireless speaker connection. I understand that lossless audio is possible over WiFi via Apple Music as ALAC format and TIDAL as FLAC for example, but not sure if the apple TV to homepod the original comment mentioned would still lossless

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u/likamuka Jan 19 '24

AirPlay is lossless since about 10 years now.

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u/DanTheMan827 Jan 19 '24

AirPlay was always lossless even back when it was still called AirTunes though.

Compressed with the Apple Lossless audio codec, but limited to 16-bit/44.1KHz

https://web.archive.org/web/20110329021254/https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jun/07airport.html

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u/deniableplausibility Jan 19 '24

Over something like Bluetooth, sure. Over WiFi, not necessarily (which would be the case if you ask Siri on HomePod to play something from Apple Music — the file would stream directly to the HomePod). Whether or not the HomePod’s DAC can actually handle anything above 24/48 is an entirely different question (and I’ve seen conflicting info on that…technically the chip they use should support up to 24/192, but that could be gimped by software).

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u/Thechosenjon Jan 19 '24

Yes, I meant over bluetooth

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u/ascagnel____ Jan 19 '24

HomePods specifically don’t accept audio via Bluetooth — you have to use AirPlay, which runs over WiFi.

As a general rule with speakers, if you don’t have to pair it, it’s not connecting via BT.

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u/DanTheMan827 Jan 19 '24

Well, that’s not entirely true… if you take a lossless file and encode it to a lossy format for Bluetooth, that would be one lossy encode.

If you take an already lossy file to transmit over Bluetooth, you’d add another lossy encode on top of the one you already, so even more data is lost from the original.

Although, if the source format happens to be compatible with the Bluetooth headphones, it could just be sent directly without any re-encoding. I don’t know if iOS does this though. EQ would throw that out the window though because that would be modifying the audio data necessitating re-encoding it again

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u/Fullyverified Jan 19 '24

That's not it at all. The difference between lossless and high bit rate ogg vorbis is basicly Impossibly to hear.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '24

Spotify doesn’t have lots of data that’s Apple doesn’t want to allow if there is Spotify doesn’t want Apple to collect to😅

I have high end speakers and when I set Spotify to high quality I don’t notice much difference. even in audiophile sub people don’t notice lots difference either. This point is much weaker than Apple fans imagine /s