Apple Music with spatial audio coming to cars for the first time

[thecodingart]

I’ve honestly been waiting on this announcement for a while now. Along with the latest updates for 2.0 + CarPlay having the following would be a good flex advertising the sound system:

Apple Music with spatial audio coming to cars

Apple Music’s popular spatial audio feature is expanding to cars for the first time. Mercedes-Benz accounted today that it is...

9to5mac.com

 

[thecodingart]

As another enhancement note, it would be absolutely phenomenal to have more details under the sound section regarding meta information for active playing formats, speakers, etc.

 

[joec]

I’ve honestly been waiting on this announcement for a while now. Along with the latest updates for 2.0 + CarPlay having the following would be a good flex advertising the sound system:

Apple Music with spatial audio coming to cars

Apple Music’s popular spatial audio feature is expanding to cars for the first time. Mercedes-Benz accounted today that it is...

9to5mac.com

Typical of 9to5Mac to try and make it sound like there’s a cost “gotcha.” Of course you need to buy a car with a surround-sound system to hear spatial audio. They’re trying to make it sound like Mercedes or Apple are trying to bilk people for more money.

 

[joec]

Typical of 9to5Mac to try and make it sound like there’s a cost “gotcha.” Of course you need to buy a car with a surround-sound system to hear spatial audio. They’re trying to make it sound like Mercedes or Apple are trying to bilk people for more money.

I wonder if Lucid have added this to their CarPlay implementation, and that has been part of the reason for the approval holdup? Maybe they hit some bugs along the way? Just a theory.

 

[MorganB]

I

I wonder if Lucid have added this to their CarPlay implementation, and that has been part of the reason for the approval holdup? Maybe they hit some bugs along the way? Just a theory.

Mercedes Benz has a native Apple Music interface in their MBUX infotainment system. With this press release they are adding Spatial Audio with Atmos. Mercedes says :

“We are proud that our vehicles will be the first-ever non-Apple devices to feature immersive Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos. This seamless experience shows how in-car entertainment can reach exciting new levels by perfectly integrating hardware and software.”

I read that as Mercedes Benz working directly with Apple on exclusivity to be first. So perhaps Lucid is wanting to add Apple Music nativity to their interface as well but had to wait till MB could get theirs out of the gate as the first. However from a technical standpoint it has nothing to do with CarPlay.

This is 100% the approach that Lucid should take. I hope they are working on it in addition to CarPlay.

 

[JSteph3061]

I

Mercedes Benz has a native Apple Music interface in their MBUX infotainment system. With this press release they are adding Spatial Audio with Atmos. Mercedes says :

“We are proud that our vehicles will be the first-ever non-Apple devices to feature immersive Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos. This seamless experience shows how in-car entertainment can reach exciting new levels by perfectly integrating hardware and software.”

I read that as Mercedes Benz working directly with Apple on exclusivity to be first. So perhaps Lucid is wanting to add Apple Music nativity to their interface as well but had to wait till MB could get theirs out of the gate as the first. However from a technical standpoint it has nothing to do with CarPlay.

This is 100% the approach that Lucid should take. I hope they are working on it in addition to CarPlay.

Amen. I know Spotify has the larger user base, but I am a longtime Apple Music user who would love to use that platform natively in my Lucid.

 

[momoskier]

Has anyone compared how apple music fares in the air compared with Tidal (non atmos - as atmos can’t be beat right now it seems)

 

[PaulM]

In the absence of an accelerometer in an apple device (think airpods pro), spatial audio is just another dsp manipulation of an audio track. It’s not necessarily a replacement of dolby atmos but rather an additional manipulation of atmos tracks or any other audio track. It was initially intended for devices that could track your position in space (an apple device). unfortunately we do not have Apple Carplay which was I assumed we would have before the end of the year. I hate to speculate but I am guessing our hardware is incompatible (no evidence).

 

[Bobby]

Has anyone compared how apple music fares in the air compared with Tidal (non atmos - as atmos can’t be beat right now it seems)

Awaiting CarPlay, which is much higher quality than the current Bluetooth.

 

[joec]

In the absence of an accelerometer in an apple device (think airpods pro), spatial audio is just another dsp manipulation of an audio track. It’s not necessarily a replacement of dolby atmos but rather an additional manipulation of atmos tracks or any other audio track. It was initially intended for devices that could track your position in space (an apple device). unfortunately we do not have Apple Carplay which was I assumed we would have before the end of the year. I hate to speculate but I am guessing our hardware is incompatible (no evidence).

There’s no reason I can think of why CarPlay will not enable Apple Music to play “Spatial Audio” encoded tracks (their name for Atmos, essentially) in their true surround form in the Air. It’s true that Spatial Audio also features head-tracking technology for headphones, but the AppleTV, for instance, plays Dolby Atmos encoded tracks properly in your living room. So when CarPlay arrives for the Air, I suspect it will sound every bit as good as Tidal (if they offer wired CarPlay) and as close as makes any difference if they only offer wireless CarPlay.

Right now, as mentioned, the only way to play Apple Music in the Air is over Bluetooth. Which is fine for a lot of people, but not good for anyone who really wants to get the most out of this system.