I had Apple Music on my Android phone. We’re a mixed household here, I used Apple Music on Android for a long time as I could also use it across iPads, MacBooks and Apple TV. Worked nicely for me until I acquired a streamer where quality was an issue. I then moved initially to Tidal, now to Qobuz. I’m happy with Qobuz family for the moment, daughter and partner both use it. And with a legacy streamer (UQ1) unless BubbleUPnP add Apple Music support, I’ll be staying with Qobuz. Price is almost an issue, but I’m happy paying 3 CDs a month for streaming, and suspect pricing will become closer over time.
Nope, it’s announced for June (2021); likely due with the next release of iOS14.6 (and linked releases for the other HW).
I also occasionally see the AirPlay symbol still, seems to depend, on wether the app supplying the stream to AirPlay supports this or on. (Maybe even on formats? And at „first connect“ from iPad to Nova it did not show, only for the 2nd track and onward.)
YouTube shows „logo“. Interestingly, Amazon Prime and TV app manage to show the cover of a movie via AirPlay on the Nova.
(They don’t stream the Full Movie, though… 
)
You might have misunderstood my post. This was in reference to which is the more important announcement.
Ah, correct. I had read the quote as direct answer to the last statement from Claire, missing the “replied to” marker on your post.
Sorry, maybe too tired today.
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It’s easy to convert with Soundiiz if you need…
I wonder if Apple might come up with usb c/lighting dac/amp dongle!
I want be staying so won’t be transferring anything.
Of course they will, part of the plan to sell more hardware in the long run. Apple love an add on dongle.
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This picture shows the real motives for this new service. You have to ask why would they open it up?
Expect updates Airpods to make more of your money, additional dongles and of course a whole new proprietary BT codec. We all love a proprietary format.
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They rediscovered the music hardware I guess
Remember the days of iPod
Beats was a mistake
Not sure; they only produce a few mass-market or essential connectors/cables themselves.
For more niche things (and a hires capable USB out, with or without DAC will be a niche thing compared to the nice, tres chic commodity products they have) they will leave to other suppliers, content with lower margins, lower volumes, etc. pp.
They are very selective as well, what they sell in their own stores (quality, volumes, …) and what they leave to other stores. (They love margin and efficient supply chains.)
Maybe they leave the HiRes „niche“ to some trusted HW suppliers. (Who now have more reason to produce something „for HiRes Apple users“. With extra style and ease of use and a somewhat higher margin than mass-market products because it’s „for Apple“.)
For 9x% of users, this will be either marketing only (good they have it, others don’t offer something more) or a placebo effect, given people are fully content on playing (not only background) music on equipment, where Sonos and HomePods are the deluxe products.
Appel often takes the margin on those 9x% and leaves the rest to others. (Unless they need an own product for policy/strategy reasons (filling a strategic gap, showing off technology leadership, attack other markets, …), like the Mac Pro. That must have cost a lot to develop and volume will be low.)
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If they see hi res or any other format as a credible selling story they might well go into it
They must be happy with airpods
They invested big time on Beats but could not build on it
Maybe all lossles / hires/ 3D sound will generate new line of products, it is a nice story to sell
Remember whenever Apple gets in 20$ headphone guys start to spend 250$ on shiny new apple ones
So maybe we will see many people with new amp/dacs
With the announcement by Apple in the last couple of days of lossless in June, I wonder whether Naim’s streaming software will eventually support the new format natively. As a long term Apple aficionado I would be interested in this (although I curently use Tidal & Qobuz) but am not sure that via Airplay from an iOS device the quality will be maintained/good enough. Also streaming via a phone seems to greatly impinge on battery life - which is not at all ideal. Any thoughts?
This is where I become a little baffled with all these new ways to stream. In my mind, streaming using my ND5XS2 should produce the best sound from my Core. Next best would be Tidal directly from within the Naim App. Chrome cast and Airplay seem like they would be the last thing I would want to use, sound wise…but I could be completely wrong about this.
Hi Powderfinger, and welcome to the Forums!
Do a search and you can see several threads already on subject.
In short - that ball is in Apple’s court!
You don’t spend £ xxxx/x on a Naim system to feed it airplay from your phone. If you do get your priorities straight. As that’s the only way you’ll get Apple music unless you have a DAC v1 or some Other USb DAC or a Sonos Connect . Sort of defeats the source is first argument you all hold on to.
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So 16/44 sent to your Naim streamer via AirPlay is less worthy than 16/44 sent to your Naim via Qobuz???
Or, if Apple extend the capability of AirPlay to hi res, somehow they are poorer quality bits than those from Qobuz?
With live lyrics, playlist sharing and recommendations from Apple Music they will give the Roon experience a run for its money.
I appreciate not everyone uses Apple kit, but I fail to see why feeding a Naim streamer via AirPlay is such a low form of music enjoyment.
Maybe it’s just cool to be anti Apple… 
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Airplay currently does some weird conversion and isn’t true 16/44 CD quality. You can clearly here the difference from Tidal amd Qobuz. But, apparently, it has the capability if the Apple software is updated to enable proper CD quality and maybe hi-res (up to a certain limit believe?).
Because for the most part it doesnt sound as good. It is less worthy due to the nature of how airplay works. It relies on two clocks one from the sender in this case your phone to push and one from the receiver in this case your expensive Naim streamer to pull. Which clock is right as they are likely to have drift between them. So timing accuracy is affected so your DAC side clock has to deal with an manipulate it to the correct frequency either by speed up or slow down the clock , drop or stuff samples from the audio stream or resample the audio frequency to the exact frequency it requires so in this case 44.1 to fix it. UPnP, RAAT and Open home use one clock the one at the streamer or DAC to determine the rate music is pulled and transferred and the server just pushes it. All this can and does affect the sq. But you only need ot hear airplay to know it’s doesn’t sound as good. If it did then no one would be wanting integrated services or bother with the Naim app .
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