Will Apple’s lossless technology Replace Traditional Bluetooth?
The AirPods Max is expensive, and they are unable to stream lossless audio. Take the AirPods Pro out of the equation. Why? This is due to the fact that they are Bluetooth, and Bluetooth is lossy. The best source in the universe may exist, but Bluetooth’s limited bandwidth and narrow pipe make it impossible to transmit true lossless audio over the wireless standard. It includes Apple Music Lossless.
Apple had planned to update either the AirPods or AirPlay, or both, to support lossless audio in the near future. Apple’s wireless media streaming protocol, AirPlay, is a wireless media streaming protocol. It’s the technology that allows the iPhone to send video to the Apple TV or audio to the HomePod, for instance. Let’s see how it goes, and then we’ll talk about which technology is superior between Apple’s lossless technology and Bluetooth technology, and why.
Road map of Apple’s Airplay
AirPlay’s initial implementation was a weekend project, a hack, to bring something much like the AirPort Express AirTunes protocol to iOS. It was extremely cool and compelling, and it worked well enough for Apple to ship it at the time. However, it was severely constrained and inherited a mountain of technical debt. As was the case with a large portion of Apple’s audio stack at the time, Which they discovered the hard way when they attempted to ship the original HomePod with features such as multi-room audio.
As a result, AirPlay 2. Refactored to accommodate the requirements of a significantly more modern media ecosystem. While Bluetooth Low Energy is used to announce availability and negotiate connections, ultra-high capacity point-to-point Wi-Fi is used to handle actual media streaming.
That was critical for a product like the original HomePod, whose marketing pitch was entirely based on how much better it sounded than Bluetooth speakers. And a part of me wonders if the reason Apple chose not to include Bluetooth on the HomePod was to ensure that it would never, ever sound as good as a Bluetooth speaker, not just in rooms, but in reviews, in Pepsi challenges all over YouTube, thereby destroying Apple’s entire marketing pitch.
Whether you’re a fan of AirPlay 2 or despise its breathing guts, Apple is fully committed to the wireless future. And for AirPods, which Apple developed concurrently with the HomePod, AirPlay was simply not an option. Because, unlike the Apple TV and HomePod, AirPods would not be permanently plugged into a wall. They were not going to be connected to anything, except our ears and the tiniest, tiniest batteries.
And, while Wi-Fi may be more efficient than Bluetooth in some situations, such as race-to-sleep or transmitting very short bursts of data and then turning off the radio to conserve power, streaming media is the polar opposite of that scenario. And, as a result of how each protocol has been used and how chips and radios have evolved to support those uses, AirPods were limited to Bluetooth, with its extremely low bandwidth and accompanying lossy and lossy compression.
Apple’s wireless chip set
Apple’s W1 was Apple’s first wireless chipset used in the original AirPods. What made Bluetooth connections and synchronization so fast, easy, solid, reliable, low-latency, and consistent were the tiny computers in each pod that were basically mini computers. As long as the AirPods and your iPhone are both connected via Bluetooth, you can still interfere with their communication if you place enough of your unsightly bag between the two devices (say, your iPhone and the bag). However, W1’s implementation was indistinguishable from radio magic for anyone who had previously lived their lives on the island of traditional Bluetooth.
Apple eventually divided W1 into W2 and W3, adding Wi-Fi handling, and incorporated them into the Apple Watch system-in-package, or SiP, for efficiency and specificity reasons. For the second-generation AirPods and, in the future, the AirPods Pro and Max, Apple’s first headphones chip, H1, was used. Heavily-computing features like active noise cancellation, transparency mode, conversation boost, and Dolby Atmos are supported by the H1’s 10 audio cores while Bluetooth is still used. However, due to the limitations of Bluetooth, lossless audio is not possible. In addition, Apple, as Gary pointed out, would prefer a larger data transfer capacity.
The original HomePod used an A8 system-on-a-chip, just like the iPhone 6, and the HomePod mini uses an S5 system-in-package, just like the Series 5 of the Apple Watch. Rather than reusing silicon, the company is investing new money and resources in a product specifically designed for headphones. This is because everyone, from the CEO down, believes it is critical.
So I’m curious if Apple could simply flip a switch and enable AirPlay for existing AirPods that are Wi-Fi dependent, not only because of the power draw but also because of the system architecture itself. Even if this were the best surprise upgrade ever, I’d only expect it when the time comes for me to do so. In the year since AirPods Pro and Max were released, along with Apple Music Lossless, those hopes have dwindled.
aptX, a high-quality Bluetooth audio compression codec developed by Qualcomm, is another example of Apple going all-in. specific to aptX: Lossless, which was recently announced. What every nerd fantasizes about Everything. Although Apple and Qualcomm are working together on 5G modems, aptX Lossless is still CD quality, 16-bit, 44.1 kHz. And that’s incredible for a Bluetooth device. Bluetooth will never be the same again. AirPods will see a significant upgrade as well. However, Bluetooth remains. As for Apple, they may want to limit their reliance on Qualcomm to a certain extent, or even go the other way entirely.
Will lossless technology replace Bluetooth?
Lossless audio isn’t available in the current AirPods lineup, whether it’s the third-generation AirPods or the AirPods Pro. Bluetooth technology is to blame because it only supports the AAC codec for music streaming rather than the ALAC. For its future AirPods lineup, Apple is rumored to be working on an alternative to Bluetooth for streaming Apple’s Lossless Audio Codec.
Bloomberg previously reported that the 2022 AirPods Pro would ditch the long stem in favor of a new design. Kuo’s claims corroborate this report, claiming that the new generation of AirPods Pro will be redesigned and will include motion sensors for fitness tracking. The new earbuds are expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to him.
In order to truly dazzle and amaze, Apple will require significantly more bandwidth than Bluetooth alone can provide. This leaves only point-to-point Wi-Fi, or perhaps a fusion of Bluetooth, WiFi, and ultra-wideband technology such as the U1 chip, as a viable option. Neither of these are ideal by themselves, but they may be when used in a very clever combination. Finally, Apple will do what is best and most appropriate for their upgrades.
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