Apple Music Streaming Lossless in Cellular doesn’t work

[nickf1]

Hi there,
Just checking if this is me or if it’s more widespread: setting Data streaming quality to lossless doesn’t seem to have any effect. All the songs I tried to play don’t play in Lossless (the lossless logo doesn’t appear). Switching to wifi fixes if immediately.
So I’m wondering if this is an issue or just a bug in iOS 15 beta 2…

Do you guys have the same behaviour?

Cheers!

 

[Julien]

It is probably your cell provider that wants to limit data use.

 

[nickf1]

Thanks but I tried on my partner’s phone and she can play lossless without issues on cellular. So it’s probably an iOS 15 bug. Let’s see in beta 3 if this gets addressed…

 

[chabig]

Check your streaming settings.

 

[TrueBlou]

Thanks but I tried on my partner’s phone and she can play lossless without issues on cellular. So it’s probably an iOS 15 bug. Let’s see in beta 3 if this gets addressed…

No problem here with iOS 15 B2. Granted, it’s very fussy about network conditions - though we know that’s how it operates.

I’ve seen me stand in one spot and have it change from Hi Res Lossless, to Lossless, to normal and back to Hi Res lossless again.

I’m on an unlimited data plan and my speed, when I do a test, is far beyond what is needed for lossless. Hi Res or otherwise, when I stream my own Hi Res tracks, from my own server, they’re fine.

So it’s possibly a combination of kinks to work out and possibly fluctuating network conditions. In my case at least.

 

[nickf1]

Thanks for your reply. I didn’t think about the buffering or that the service quality would be a factor. That makes sense. I’ll do another test with good coverage (I just have one bar at home).
My carrier has unlimited Apple Music data so I was planning to use lossless in the car, that’s why I was trying to get lossless on cellular. But I can’t seem to get it consistently, and CarPlay doesn’t show the sound quality, so I can’t check while I’m driving… have you been able to do that ?
Cheers!

 

[TrueBlou]

I’ve not had much trouble out and about, walking, or in the car. At the moment though, we’ve not really been going very far and the areas we’ve been in have excellent cellular service.

At home, I’m in a weird spot for cellular reception - so much so, that I actually had Apple here a wee while back for several days, investigating the weird way the coverage is here.

I should, theoretically, be in an amazing spot for super fast coverage. The reality however is that it really depends on where you’re standing.

Due to the way the signal gets randomly bounced around and blocked - mostly by trees, there’s nothing much else to interfere with it.

It’s an interesting place for anyone who’s into RF. I was a semiconductor engineer in a past life, so I had to deal with a lot of high power RF. Which is why Apple and my cellular carrier were here taking measurements and scratching their heads, wondering why - and how such things could be improved upon.

Sorry, just realised I’m rambling on - just had my morphine - So, yeah the quality is very, very dependant on your signal.

When you consider that [for instance] a typical Hi-Res Lossless track requires around 96 times more bandwidth than the old High Efficiency tracks we’ve been used to. You start to see the importance of a good quality, high speed cellular connection. So it can be beneficial to do a speed test and see what you’re getting. If it’s not fast enough, you just won’t get the Hi-Res and/or Lossless.