Sorry audiophiles, lossless, high-fidelity music is useless marketing snake oil, and always has been.
Update 5/17: Apple has announced high-res lossless audio for Apple Music, launching in June. This article has been updated to reflect the news. We’ve heard rumors of a new AirPods design for some time now. (Many keep calling them AirPods 3, though there was never really an AirPods 2.) Depending on who you believe, those are due to be announced at any time—at WWDC, or this fall, or now the latest rumor says early next week. They were supposed to accompany a new Apple Music subscription tier that launched Monday after a raft of rumors but didn’t. While a new AirPods design is welcome, this high-end Apple Music tier is not. High-fidelity music has always been snake oil; a way to part music-loving audiophiles convinced of their golden ears and from their hard-earned money. It has never caught on, mostly because it’s simply not needed. With Amazon and Spotify adding hi-fidelity tiers to their services, I’m not surprised Apple added the new lossless option to Apple Music, but I wish it hadn’t, even though it doesn’t cost any more. Apple wouldn’t be the first company to try to sell music-lovers on the need for higher-fidelity audio. Or the second. Or the fifth. Digital hi-resolution, high-fidelity audio has been a thing since before the iPod, when there was a format war between DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD over which one could get you to replace your CD player and most of your music for no damn reason whatsoever. Music lovers have been ripping CDs in lossless formats like FLAC for ages. Apple even has its own, ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), which is now open-source and royalty-free. Despite these formats being available for a very long time, they never really became mainstream. Apple Music Hi-Fi won’t sounds any different on your HomePod.
