Apple Music Lossless on Windows.

Also on windows. This is unacceptable. I only just noticed it today after prodding around. Why limit your features based on what platform your customers are on? I use a macbook pro for work, windows for personal. There's no excuse for this.

Just wanted to share my experience with fixing this problem on Windows 10:

Using apple music preview, to me unless this is just an issue with the music player displaying incorrect info, the only way to fix this right now is to just download the songs with the Hi-Res setting on (I, like other users, had it on for streaming but apparently not working, unless again it's just a display bug).

For example here when I stream it, it is 256 AAC, but after downloading the song, you can see the file size increased tenfold, and is now HLS type file-which as others mentioned is Apple encrypted lossless file. Unless you have a lot of storage this solution still kind of sucks, and really hope the devs will change this soon. Also, strange side note but when I first played the downloaded song my windows audio settings changed and I had to go back into the sound device settings to set it back to 24/192. At the end of the day the AAC-->ALAC improvement is small compared to the improvement from, say, spotify "highest" quality to Apple AAC, but this is really inconvenient still.

Not sure if it is true lossless. Yes, the symbol is there, but file properties still show 256 AAC, even with full lossless settings enabled. Need to connect to external DAC and check, if the app supports bit-perfect output

Apple recently released the apple music preview onto the microsoft store.

This is supports apple music lossless.

The application itself is still a W.I.P, so expect some bugs. From my personal experience it works better than iTunes for music playing.

100% showing as AAC 256kbps files on PC and lossless ALAC on MacOS. I just cross checked A LOT of albums.

eg. https://music.apple.com/au/album/are-you-gonna-go-my-way-20th-anniversary-deluxe-edition/1443236832

Yet I have all the lossless toggles in the settings, maxed out to lossless 24/192khz. I truly hope this is just a preview limitation

I hope that a future update will fix the issue! However, I've noticed that when downloading the music and checking the properties, the file is no longer AAC but HLS (encrypted ALAC). In short, it works, but not for streaming

Nope files are way too small 7-9mb each. average lossless is at least 20-30mb at least. Bit of a downer as all my good gear is set up on my pc (headphones and amp). Be good to utilise them to their fullest on here. I have an iphone so can still run some good audio but without an amp it can be sub-optimal. Hope they fix this but probably a punishment for being PC and not Mac. Used to love mac products but they are proving time and again to be behind the curve now.

It's bizarre and ridiculous. I have an Android-based DAP, and I have the iTunes app on it. I can stream hi-res lossless that way ... but not on Windows. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

From this article:

About lossless audio in Apple Music - Apple Support

I gather that Apple does not support lossless Apple Music subscriptions on a PC.

I never never ever comment, I logged into this, through windows, typing my apple id and password, then verified my account

Just so I can

Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu , you are just fabulous

Funny you should ask. I've been testing Tidal as of late. I think it has the edge in terms of library and UX. Also, the difference between CD quality and lossless is nonexistent to my ear so I'd look at the CD tier only. It sounds great.

Qobuz great, but for my use, I'd give the nod to Tidal.

I gave up and bought a 12-month Qobuz sub. Maybe it'll be fixed down the line. I have apple music in my One subscription but too many hoops to jump through. Even on Mac.

Hi there Edmerklein, check sound settings under Windows Settings App and make sure your output quality is set to 24/192! Good luck and enjoy.

It's not working this way on my Windows 11 machine and Apple Music 1.4.4.33. The file size doesn't change and the downloaded file plays on a hi-res capable platform as an AAC file. My whole reason for getting Apple music was to be able to upgrade my purchases to hi-res.