Apple Music delivered industry-leading sound quality to subscribers with the addition of high quality Lossless Audio and Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos in June 2021 at no additional cost.
“Spotify HiFi,” first announced by the company in February is still M.I.A., perhaps because Spotify intended on charging extra for it until the learned of Apple’s plan to provide Lossless Audio and Spatial Audio to subscribers for free.
Spotify HiFi, first announced all the way back in February, has yet to roll out despite the company’s early estimate that it would debut “later this year.” At the time, Spotify said HiFi would be available in select markets and that the company would “have more details to share soon.”
Over the next 10 months, those details never came.
Meanwhile, Spotify’s competitors didn’t wait around. Apple Music rolled out lossless and hi-res playback in June, offering the improved audio quality at no extra charge.
It’s possible that Spotify has had second thoughts about launching the feature — or at least is no longer in a rush to deliver it… There’s no longer any financial incentive. Apple has essentially forced Spotify’s hand to offer CD-quality streaming without wringing more money from customers. And if it’s not contributing to the bottom line, what’s the point? There’s also the possibility that Spotify ran into a legal quagmire in trying to update its music deals for HiFi.
Spotify has yet to confirm whether it too will offer Atmos tracks — or even hi-res audio that exceeds 16-bit/44.1kHz.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at Spotify* on May 17, 2021 when Apple Music, already No.1 in America (the world’s No.1 music market), announced the launch of Lossless Audio and Spatial Audio for free!
*and survived the objects we imagine were thrown.
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Tough spot for Spotify. Apple can afford to make changes to the db and up the bandwidth from their servers. Big company gets provider to provide more for peanuts. Spotify is in a tougher money spot. it’s not impossible for them but resources are fewer.
If Apple is able to come up with the ability of its bluetooth based listening devices to play HiFi? That’s going to be a tough spot for Spotify.
Yeah….thanks Apple. It’s (seriously) a nice start but….for the love of GOD make Apple Music on the Mac able to play variable bit rates!!
Or better yet just go buy Audirvana (since they’ll never go full throttle like ROON).
Verizon doesn’t support it. You start to rock to the tune, and then…dead noise
I’ll stick to owning and local copy over streaming.
If I want to stream something, there’s YouTube or SiriusXM.
Hey BS-we,
You’re rather cynical, eh?
You’ve taken on the cynic’s mantle.
A mantle that proves you’re the man, laden with gonäds, or if you’re a womantle, you’ve got övaries of titanium.
May the force be with you and make the BS you emanate not be too toxic.
You use too many umlauts.
Not written in German, I don’t detect one “umlaut”…
I did not have my glasses on, now I see what you are referring to…
I AM the UMLAUT
No one gives a crap.