Apple Music's Vice President Oliver Schusser shared interesting insights about Apple Music, lossless audio, and more in his recent interview with Billboard.

Apple Music VP admits most people can't hear the difference in lossless audio

Yesterday, Billboard published a new interview featuring Apple Music President Oliver Schusser and Billboard's Kristin Robinson.

Schusser talked about the origins of Spatial Audio and the differences with lossless audio.

If you look at audio standards, it's hard to change audio standards. And if we go back 60 years, there was really only mono [and then stereo]. We wanted to create a new standard [at Apple Music], and we had two distinct criteria. First: we thought people — the general public, fans — would understand the difference. Second: we wanted it to work on as many devices as possible, even all devices. Not just Apple devices, but in general.

Apple Music also supports lossless audio, but it always lags behind Spatial Audio. The interview makes it quite clear why that is.

Kristin Robinson: I admit that most ordinary people really can't hear the difference with lossless audio.

Oliver Schusser: That's right. My second point is this: to be honest, if we did an anonymous [blind] test with just an iPhone and headphones — and you and I work in the industry, and I assume you enjoy sound as much as I do — I can tell you that most fans wouldn't understand the difference. But we did that with spatial audio.

Schusser is not saying that no one can understand the difference with lossless audio. However, he confirms that for most people, lossless audio does not make a difference.

Other topics covered in the interview include:

  • Apple Music subscriber loss: “We have the lowest loss in the industry.”
  • AI-generated music on Apple Music: “There is really very little AI music on Apple Music. I'm rounding, but it's under 0.5% of usage.”
  • Free tiers: “The cheapest marketing mechanism in the world is where labels basically give everyone the right to do free marketing — take all our content and use it for marketing, and then sell it.”

You can read the full interview on Billboard. It's also available on Apple News+.

How was your experience with Apple Music and lossless audio? Let us know in the comments.

Apple Music is available for $10.99 per month, or you can get it with the Apple One bundle.

Learn more about the Apple Music lossless audio experience