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When Apple Music Lossless was announced, it wasn’t clear if HomePod would be able to play lossless audio quality. Later, the company said that HomePod and HomePod mini will receive a future software update to support this feature.
While Apple’s smart speakers don’t play Lossless yet, it looks like you can AirPlay that quality from your iPhone to your HomePod. Here’s how it works.
Lossless-enabled iOS 14.6 users can AirPlay this audio quality from iPhone to HomePod. Here are the steps:
Make sure the song/album is available in Lossless and downloaded with the correct version; Click the AirPlay button on the iPhone, then select your HomePod; The icon should appear as “iPhone -> HomePod;” If so, you’ll see a small “lossless” icon above the play/pause button. If only “HomePod” appears in AirPlay, it will not stream in lossless audio quality.
I tried playing a lot of different songs in Lossless on the HomePod. The important part is: Not every time I hear a difference between an AAC file and a Lossless file. As we know, not everyone will hear the difference between AAC and Lossless. Here’s what Eddy Cue had to say about Lossless to Billboard while praising Dolby Atmos:
“The lossless fact is: If I take 100 people and I take a lossless stereo song and I take a song that was compressed in Apple Music, I don’t know if it was 99 or 98 I can’t tell the difference.” Cue revealed that he regularly performed blind tests with the Apple Music team, They emphasized how rare a person would be able to consistently identify a missing voice. “You can say to someone, ‘Oh, you’re listening to a loss [song], and they say to you, “Oh, wow. That sounds incredible. They’re only saying it because you told them it was no loss and it seemed like the right thing to say, but you can’t tell.”
Since AirPlay is based on Wi-Fi, and HomePod supports FLAC/ALAC encoding, technically you can stream a song or album in Lossless via iPhone to the smart speaker.
Home app adds new HomePod settings in iOS 15
And if you’re on iOS 15, there’s a new Apple Music section in the Home app that lets users switch to “Lossless Audio.” Here are the steps:
Open the Home app; Click the Home icon in the upper left corner, then “Home Settings;” Select your Apple ID, then “Apple Music” in “Media”; Turn on the “Lossless Audio” switch.
The weird part is that even if you’re already playing HomePod 15 beta 1 and you toggle on this feature on your iOS 15 beta device, the Music app will not display a lossless icon for songs playing on your HomePod.
Since we’re still in beta 1 of iOS 15 and HomePod 15, it’s still unclear if everything is fully working. What can be said is that Apple is already working on Lossless support natively on HomePod starting with iOS 15 and that AirPlay support is now there when you switch from iPhone to HomePod.
Are you able to AirPlay Apple Music Lossless from iPhone to HomePod? Tell us in the comment section below.
Thanks Milan for the tip!
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