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Apple announced today that Apple Music will be gaining support for Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos at no additional cost. The upgraded tracks will begin  in June with the next release of iOS 14. 

Spatial Audio is a type of virtual surround sound as it doesn’t require multiple speakers—It all happens within your headphones!  Different music sounds like its are coming from left, right, or center from a fixed position in the “room”. As you turn your head the music will move across the headphones, creating the experience of surround sound. By default, Apple Music will automatically play Dolby Atmos tracks on all AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip, as well as the built-in speakers in the latest versions of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, according to Apple.

Apple Music will be getting new Dolby Atmos tracks constantly and will offer a curated selection of Dolby Atmos playlists, according to Apple. Dolby Atmos albums will have a badge on their detail page for easy discovery. Apple Music will also make its catalog of more than 75 million songs available in Lossless Audio.  Lossless audio doesn’t use the spatial audio features, but is instead a higher quality, less compressed version of the MP3 files that you hear now. 

To start listening to Lossless Audio, subscribers using the latest version of Apple Music can turn it on in Settings > Music > Audio Quality. Here, they can choose different fidelities for different connections such as cellular, Wi-Fi, or for download. Apple Music’s Lossless tier starts at CD quality, and will offer higher tiers in the future.