Apple vice president Oliver Schusser, who leads Apple Music, was recently interviewed by Billboard and had some interesting things to share about Apple Music, lossless audio, and more.
Apple Music VP admits most people can’t hear difference in lossless audio
Yesterday Billboard published a new interview with Apple Music head Oliver Schusser and Billboard’s Kristin Robinson.
Schusser talked about the origins of Spatial Audio and where it differs from lossless audio.
If you look at audio, changing audio standards are hard. And if you look back over like 60 years, there’s only really been mono [and then eventually stereo]. [At Apple Music] we wanted to create a new standard with two distinctive criteria. One: we thought it’s important that people — general people, fans — can notice the difference. And number two: we wanted it to work on as many, if not all, devices. Not just Apple devices, but just in general.
Apple Music also supports lossless audio, but it’s always taken second billing to Spatial Audio. It’s pretty clear, based on the interview, why that’s the case.
Kristin Robinson: I do agree that most average people can’t really hear the difference with lossless.
Oliver Schusser: Correct. My second point is: honestly, if we did an anonymous [blind] test on just an iPhone with headphones — and you and I work in the industry, and I assume you like sound as much as I do — I can tell you most fans wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But that’s what we did with spatial audio.
Schusser clearly isn’t saying that no one can tell the difference with lossless audio. But he does confirm the general consensus that for the vast majority of people, lossless makes no difference.
Other topics covered in the interview include:
Apple Music subscriber churn: “We’ve got the lowest churn in the industry.”
AI-generated music on Apple Music: “AI music on Apple Music is really tiny. I’m rounding but it’s below 0.5% of usage.”
Free tiers: “it’s the cheapest marketing mechanism in the world, where the labels have given everyone the right to basically do free marketing — like, take all our content and use it for marketing and then upsell.”
You can read the full interview here on Billboard. It’s also here on Apple News+.
What’s your experience like with Spatial Audio and lossless on Apple Music? Let us know in the comments.
Apple Music is available for $10.99/month, or you can get it as part of the Apple One bundle.
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