Apple Music has announced that it will include high fidelity streaming as part of its service with no additional cost required, marking a huge shake-up in the streaming wars.
From next month, subscribers will be able to access lossless audio. There’ll be 20 million songs with the streaming capability to start, with Apple saying it’ll have 75 million available by the end of the year.
In addition, they’re also introducing spatial audio through Dolby Atmos, giving listeners with AirPods or Beats a much more immersive listening experience. Apple have also revealed that iPhones, iPads and Macs will use spatial audio by default. This will also be available to subscribers with no additional cost.
This move comes shortly after Amazon Music made a similar change to their service, now including lossless audio to all subscribers for no extra cost as opposed to just those subscribed to their HD tier.
Of course, Tidal has been in the lossless audio streaming game for a while, and Spotify have announced that they’ll be bringing HiFi streaming to their service later this year.
However, unlike Apple and Amazon, it appears – according to The Verge – that this will only available for select markets for Spotify listeners and come at a higher price than the regular subscription.