This week, Apple announced new Apple Music features, with support for Lossless Audio, Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos too. These features will come at no extra cost to existing subscribers and will be available next month.

Apple has said that over 75 million songs will be available in Lossless Audio at launch and these will be in the ALAC codec, with the choice of various quality levels, from what Apple calls “CD quality”, 16bit at 44.1kHz, 24 bit at 48kHz and all the way up to Hi-Res Lossless, 24 bit at 192kWz. The highest of the three will actually require additional hardware.

Lossless audio won’t actually work with any AirPods models, as they are limited to the Bluetooth AAC codec and can’t stream the larger files. Apple has said however that it will work on Macs, iPhones and iPads.

Spatial audio tracks will work on all Apple and Beats headphones and earbuds that have he H1 or W1 chip, this means all versions of AirPods will work.

Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio will be available on iOS 14.6, iPadOS 14.6, macOS 11.4, and tvOS 14.6 or later when it is available in June.