Apple Previews Sharing Over FaceTime; Bows Dolby Atmos, Lossless Audio

Productivity, video-calling advances, Spatial Audio and shared entertainment experiences were headliners at Apple’s virtual Worldwide Developers Conference keynote announcing new features of the upcoming iOS 15 Monday. Apple Senior Vice President-Software Engineering Craig Federighi opened the event, highlighting features designed to help users stay connected in new ways.

Referencing the need during the COVID-19 pandemic to find ways to get face-to-face, “we’ve all found ourselves using video calling for just about everything,” Federighi said, but not without challenges. New FaceTime features are designed to address limitations in video calling to make interactions more natural, comfortable and lifelike. Apple is bringing Spatial Audio, introduced last month in Apple Music, to FaceTime to help conversations “flow as easily as they do face to face,” said Federighi. With Spatial Audio, voices are “spread out” to sound like they’re coming from the direction where they’re positioned on the call.

FaceTime users can improve the sound quality from their end by choosing one of two mic features. With voice isolation, machine learning distinguishes among nearby sounds, blocks out ambient noise and prioritizes the user’s voice, he said. In situations where users want all sound to come through, wide spectrum picks up a “symphony’s worth of sound.” In video mode, users can select grid view to see everyone on a group call in tiles on the screen. Apple added portrait mode for users who want to blur the background.

Apple is extending FaceTime calls outside the ecosystem, letting Apple customers send links to Windows and Android users. They can send FaceTime links in messages, email, WhatsApp or in a calendar invite, said Federighi. Calls are end-to-end encrypted, he said.

Lossless audio got a quick mention during the WWDC event when Yah Cason, senior engineer-HomeKit software, said Apple Music will make its library lossless later this year. A news release said the 75-million track catalog will be available in the Lossless tier, encoded in Apple Lossless Audio Codec, starting at 16-bit/44.1 kHz through 24-bit/48 kHz playback. A second tier, Hi-Resolution Lossless, will have files up to 24-bit/192 kHz.

Spatial Audio, with support for Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio, will be available to Apple Music subscribers at no additional cost, said the company, and “thousands” of tracks will be available in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos at launch, with more to come. It didn’t give pricing for either lossless tier.

Apple described Dolby’s Atmos as an immersive audio experience “that enables artists to mix music so the sound comes from all around and from above.” By default, Apple Music will automatically play Dolby Atmos tracks on all AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip, Apple said, plus the built-in speakers in the latest versions of iPhone, iPad and Mac. Apple Music will add new Atmos tracks “constantly” and curate a set of Dolby Atmos playlists to help listeners find music. Albums available in Dolby Atmos will have a badge on the detail page to make them easy to locate.

Also new in iOS 15 is SharePlay, a way to share music, video and a user’s screen while on a FaceTime call. While on a call, pressing “play” in Apple Music will start play of a track everyone on the call can hear, Federighi said. All call participants can add songs to a shared queue and control playback.

The same process works for streaming video services. Users can chat about a shared video in messages. Apple gave Disney+, ESPN+, HBO Max, Hulu, MasterClass, Paramount+, Pluto TV, TikTok, NBA and Twitch as services integrating SharePlay into their apps. It didn’t mention other music streaming services beyond Apple Music, but Federighi said an application programming interface allows third-party developers to bring their own apps into FaceTime. Users can also share app experiences over FaceTime. He gave the example of roommates looking together at house listings on Zillow.