| Cult of Mac

AirPods, HomePod lose out on Apple Music lossless audio streaming [Updated]

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AirPods Max connected to iPhone
AirPods Max have a lot to offer, but not the upcoming Apple Music lossless option.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

Apple Music fans who are super-excited about the just-announced lossless audio option should be aware that it won’t work with AirPods or HomePod. Not even the $549 AirPods Max.

But Apple’s headphones and smart speaker do support Spatial Audio for songs mixed in Dolby Atmos, another new feature of Apple Music.

Apple Brings iTunes Match To Hungary And Poland

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iTunes Match expands its reach across Europe.
iTunes Match expands its reach across Europe.

iTunes Match has expanded its reach in Europe today as Apple brings the music matching service to Hungary and Poland more than 18 months after it made its debut in the United States. The Cupertino company is yet to add these countries to its iTunes Match availability page, but users report that the service is now appearing in iTunes.

App To Help A Three Year Old Girl Talk Pulled From App Store

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maya

Imagine for a moment that your three year old daughter has a disability that stops her from using her voice to communicate. Then imagine that a combination of an iPad and a specialized app gave her the ability to talk to you, requesting things, express her needs, and even say, “Daddy, I love you.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d see that iPad and app as some sort of technological miracle.

Now, imagine that the app was pulled from the app store.

iTunes 10.6 Will Sync Music At Higher 192kbps and 256kbps Bitrates

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iTunes no longer punishes you for low bitrate convenience

ITunes has long given users the option of scaling music down to 128kbps upon sync to their iPod or other device in order to save space. The idea being, I guess, that you could keep your master collection at a higher bit-rate on the computer’s capacious hard drive, whilst saving space on the smaller flash storage on the iPod. Bit what if you liked this idea, but hated the low quality? Well, iTunes 10.6 has your back.

‘OPlayer’ for iOS Supports Impressive List Of Media Formats

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OPlayer, from olimsoft, is an iOS application for both iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad, that claims to boost your device’s media capabilities by allowing playback of a huge list of audio and video file formats.

The list of supported formats is pretty impressive, and will save you a great deal of effort if you often find yourself having to convert movies to watch on your device while you’re on the move. A fairly big video file can take a while to convert and it’s not the most exciting of tasks. But with OPlayer conversion isn’t needed – simply transfer your media to your device.

The full list of supported formats includes MP3, WMA, RM, AAC, WMV, AVI, MKV, RMVB, XVID, MP4, MOV, 3GP and MPG.

You can transfer files to your device using the File Sharing feature within iTunes or you can download them using the built-in browser from your computer, from the internet or from an FTP server. It’s also possible to stream media to your device over Wi-Fi and 3G.

The release of OPlayer, and of CineXPlayer last week, in to the App Store certainly suggests that Apple is relaxing some of its restrictions on app approvals, most likely in a bid to discourage users from jailbreaking their devices. Will this open the doors for other third-party media players?

Get OPlayer for your iPhone & iPod Touch from the App Store here, or get the HD version for your iPad here.