In May this year, an APK teardown of the Apple Music app for Android revealed that Apple was preparing to add lossless music streaming support. The feature is now finally rolling out to users on the beta channel, along with Spatial audio support.
According to 9to5Google, Apple Music users on Android can now sign up for the beta channel in the Play Store to try the new Lossless and Spatial audio features. Once you're signed up for the beta channel, you should receive the latest beta update on your phone. The updated all will give you access to Spatial listening "on compatible devices," with "thousands of tracks in Dolby Atmos available at launch." The app will also include a new playlist of available songs for Spatial audio. You can also identify supported songs by looking for the "Dolby Atmos" badge that appears right above the list of tracks on an album page.
You'll also be able to check for Lossless audio tracks in the same fashion. But before you do that, you'll need to enable the new "Lossless Audio" setting in the "Audio Quality" menu. The setting will provide you with four different tiers, including:
- High Efficiency: AAC with low data usage [Cellular only]
- High Quality: AAC 256 kbps
- Lossless: ALAC up to 24-bit/48 kHz
- High-resolution Lossless: ALAC up to 24-bit/129 kHz
Along with these new features, Apple Music for Android now also offers Automatic Crossfade and a few library enhancements. The full changelog for Apple Music on Android v3.6-beta is reproduced in the section below.
Check out this guide to see how you can experience lossless audio on your phone.