Spatial audio is coming to Apple Music today, Apple has confirmed at its WWDC (Apple Worldwide Developers Conference) event.
Last month, Apple announced that Dolby Atmos-powered spatial audio tracks would soon be coming to its music streaming service alongside CD-quality and hi-res lossless audio for no additional cost and, after a staggered rollout over the course of the day, both features are now live (at least they are for us).
Spatial audio with Dolby Atmos is designed to deliver surround sound and 3D audio via your headphones – to put "multidimensional sound and clarity" between your ears. This experience works with Apple's AirPods, as well as any headphones. That's right, Apple Music's spatial audio tracks will play on all headphones (and here's how to enable it).
Unlike the spatial audio feature that initially launched as part of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, the new Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos for Apple Music doesn't require the sensors in Apple's own headphones to enable head-tracking (which helps position the sound accurately). The implementation for Apple Music of spatial audio is sound-only, and this opens it up to more devices.
For example, while the Apple TV can't output spatial audio to a pair of headphones (although Apple has announced that it will be getting that ability later this year), it will support Dolby Atmos tracks from Apple Music when connected to an Atmos-capable sound system.
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