Gapless playback breaks when converting Apple Lossless to 256 kbps AAC for syncing music to iPhone

Question

Gapless playback breaks when converting Apple Lossless to 256 kbps AAC for syncing music to iPhone

Hi, raising this question again as I have seen many people seeking a solution despite it being highlighted as a problem over the past couple of years.

I have albums in my iMac Apple Music library in Apple Lossless (ALAC) format that play tracks 'gaplessly' with no issue. If I sync these ALAC tracks to my iPad Pro they also play back gaplessly as they should. However, if I sync the same tracks to my iPhone while selecting the option in to convert higher-bitrate tracks to 256 kbps AAC, when I listen to these tracks on my iPhone gapless playback is broken.

I am using Mac OS Monterey 12.1 and iOS 15.2. Has anyone managed to identify a solution for this issue? Does anyone know whether Apple is planning to fix this in an upcoming software update?

Many thanks...

Posted on Jan 2, 2022 9:56 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

andrewfromwimbledon Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 5, 2022 7:51 AM in response to andrewfromwimbledon

Some further testing to report.

To reiterate, the tracks in Apple Music on my iMac are ALAC and play back gaplessly.
If I sync these tracks to my iPhone with 'Convert higher bit rate songs to 256 kbps AAC' checked, the tracks no longer play gaplessly on from my iPhone (there is an audible 'click'/short gap between tracks)
If I convert the ALAC files to 256 kbps AAC in my iMac library and THEN sync to them to my iPhone, playback from the iPhone is gapless, as it should be.

So I seem to have proved that there is a bug with the 'Convert higher bit rate songs to 256 kbps AAC' function in sync settings, which is removing gapless playback for tracks sync'd to my iPhone?

Reply

Answer 2

Jan 2, 2022 11:41 PM in response to andrewfromwimbledon

Upon further investigation, it seems the issue described above only affects the albums I have imported into Apple Music as ALAC files relatively recently (the last month or two). Albums that have been in my library for a number of years do still play gaplessly on my iPhone with the ‘convert to 256 bps AAC’ option activated when syncing. So this bug may be occurring during the conversion to AAC but has been introduced into Apple Music during a recent update?

Reply

Gapless playback breaks when converting Apple Lossless to 256 kbps AAC for syncing music to iPhone

Similar questions