Earlier this year, I discussed exposure notification apps that are designed to warn you if you may have been exposed to someone else with COVID-19.  In an article for MIT Technology Review, Betsy Ladyzhets reports that it appears that these apps had only limited success because so few people used them, but also reports that now that we have the technology, similar apps could be useful when we have the next public health crisis.  Which hopefully will not be any time soon.  I think that a more useful COVID-19 app is one that you can use to show that you are fully vaccinated.  For example, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg noted yesterday that wearing a mask is now optional in Apple Stores if you are fully vaccinated.  As I discussed earlier this year, states like New York and Louisiana now have apps that certify that you are vaccinated.  However, so far, I’m not seeing many places in the United States ask for proof of vaccination, instead relying on an honor system.  Regardless of whether apps are involved, it is nice to see many communities begin to return to a more normal state as more folks get vaccinated.  My wife and I are certainly relieved that both we and our teenagers are now fully vaccinated.  Having said that, I know that we have it much better here in the United States than most other countries do.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• If you are reading this on Friday morning and you are looking for some CLE credits, I’m co-presenting a one-hour webinar at Noon Central today for the New Orleans Bar Association along with New Orleans attorney Sean Brady.  Our topic is Preserving Error for Appellate Courts, and we will be providing advice for making the best record at the trial court level to prepare for an appeal.  Louisiana CLE credit is available, including Appellate Specialization, and you may be able to get CLE credit in other states too.  There is not really an iPhone/iPad angle here, except that I did prepare our slides using the Keynote app on my iPad.
• Josh Centers of TidBITS explains which models you will need this Fall to take advantage of new features in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and more.
• Philip Michaels of Tom’s Guide explains what is new in Maps in iOS 15, including an interesting AR walking directions feature where you can hold up your iPhone screen and AR-powered overlays with arrows and street names will make it very clear where you need to go next.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors explains what is new with FaceTime in iOS 15.
• In an article for Macworld, Dan Moren reports on other new features coming in iOS 15:  the new Safari, improvements to Shortcuts, and the new multitasking system on the iPad.
• I’m a big fan of the HomePod mini, which I reviewed a few months ago.  Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports that the HomePod mini is now available in Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.
• Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly reports that the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso received a Peabody Award for “offering the perfect counter to the enduring prevalence of toxic masculinity.”  That’s true, but it’s also very funny.
• If you are looking forward to Season 2 of Ted Lasso like I am, I’ve heard folks recommend that you NOT watch the new trailer because, while funny, it contains some spoilers for Season 2.  For that reason, I haven’t watched it.  Instead, if you want to hear the wisdom of Ted Lasso now, I recommend that you watch this video in which he and Coach Beard introduce the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team for the upcoming Olympics in Tokyo.
• In an article for The Guardian, Bradford Gauthier of Worcester, Massachusetts, explains how he accidentally swallowed one of his AirPods, but a doctor was able to remove it, and it still works.
• If you are looking to get a new set of AirPods — hopefully not because you swallowed your last pair — Michael Simon of Macworld reports that they are at an all-time low price.  For example, on Amazon, you can get AirPods Pro, which are normally $249, for under $200.  That’s a great price for a product that I love.  In fact, during last week’s episode of the In the News podcast, my co-host Brett Burney revealed that he took advantage of this sale and he is loving his new AirPods Pro.
• Apple announced some new features coming soon for Fitness+.  First, there are new Time to Walk workouts featuring people such as Stephen Fry, Naomi Campbell, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and others.  Second, there will be workouts in which the entire playlist is dedicated to a single artist, starting with Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban, and Lady Gaga.  Third, Apple will add a series of workouts with fitness expert Jeanette Jenkins.
• Simon Jary of Macworld recommends USB-C hubs for the iPad Pro or the newest iPad Air with a USB-C port.  The first one that he recommends is the HyperDrive 6-in-1 USB-C Hub ($69.99 on Amazon), which was my pick during last week’s episode of the In the News podcast.  I’ve used that hub a couple of times this week while using my iPad Pro in my office.
• In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell explains why he thinks that Apple may be planning to add an iPad feature that lets you connect to an external monitor and then run multiple apps in different overlapping windows, similar to a computer.
• And finally, as a fan of Apple and the son of an architect, I always love it when Apple takes an abandoned historic building and restores it to become an Apple Store.  Apple recently did that to the Tower Theater in Los Angeles.  According to this local news report from two years ago, it was no longer possible to use the former theater for its original purpose, so it has sat abandoned.  But there is a lot of history here — this was the first theater in the world to show a full-length motion picture with sound (The Jazz Singer in 1927) — and it was an interesting building.  Now you can visit the site and purchase a new iPhone to create your own movies, appreciating the incredible restoration of this building as you do so.  You can read about the restoration and see lots of great photos on the Apple website, and I’ve embedded below the video that is on that page.

I love using Apple Pay in stores because it is such a quick and secure way to pay for items.  Two years ago, Apple debuted Express Transit with Apple Pay, which allows you to pay for a subway ride in New York (and some other cities) by simply holding your iPhone close to the contactless reader at a turnstile.

If you don’t live in New York but you still want to see how easy it is to use the system, Chance Miller of 9to5Mac noticed that Apple just added an Augmented Reality experience to its webpage dedicated to the New York MTA transit system.  Scroll down that webpage to the section that says “Take a virtual trip with Pay” and then tap the link that says Experience in AR.  When you do so, you will place a picture of a turnstile wherever you are in the real world, and then you can place your iPhone on the reader to to pretend to pay.

The whole thing is a little silly, but after you do it, you will definitely understand from first-hand experience how easy it is to pay for a subway ride with an iPhone.  And the next time that you are in New York or another city that supports this system, you will know exactly what to do.  According to this page, you can currently use Express Transit with certain transit systems in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Portland, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.  Outside of the U.S., you can use Express Transit with certain systems in China, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, and parts of the United Kingdom.

Episode 6 of the In the News podcast is now available.  In this week’s episode, Brett Burney and I begin by discussing the Apple TV+ service including some of our favorite shows.  Next, we discuss some new information about how Apple views its Apple Watch and aims to make that device better.  Third, we talk about upcoming improvements to the iPad in iPadOS 15.

Finally, in our In the Know segment, Brett recommends Apple’s AirPods Pro and we discuss what makes them better than regular AirPods or other headphones.  I recommend two great devices for connecting accessories to an iPad.  If you have an iPad Pro model that was released in 2018 or later, you have USB-C, and I recommend the HyperDrive 6-in-1 ($89.99 on Amazon).  If you have an iPad model with Lightning, I recommend Apple’s Lightning to USB3 Camera Adapter ($34.57 on Amazon).

Click here to listen to the audio podcast.  Or you can watch the episode on YouTube:

On November 1, 2019, Apple TV+ debuted.  The cost is $4.99 a month (or it is also part of an Apple One subscription), but from the beginning, Apple made the first year free for anyone who bought certain new Apple hardware such as an iPhone or iPad.  There have been some fantastic shows on Apple TV+.  Ted Lasso is universally loved, and my wife and I are both looking forward to the second season, which starts on July 23.  I also really loved For All Mankind; after watching the first two seasons myself as new episodes came out, I’m currently re-watching that series with my son, who loves it too.  And I’ve enjoyed lots of other shows:  Mythic Quest, Trying, Tiny World, Dickinson, Tehran, The Morning Show, Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You, Greyhound … and even the show See had some good moments.  When Apple announced that the first year was free, I’m sure that Apple expected to have new shows and the second seasons of the original shows available in late 2020 as most folks would be deciding whether to renew.  But the pandemic slowed production for the entire industry, and with not much that was new in late 2020, Apple extended the free deal.  (And for those of us paying for Apple One, Apple has been sending a $4.99 credit every month.)  Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac reports that, starting in July, the free trial period is being reduced to three months, and those who have been enjoying the extended free subscription until now will have to start paying in July.  I plan to continue paying for the service.  Even though the service started with only a few shows, Apple has ramped that up fairly quickly (aside from the pandemic) and there are many things coming later this year.  But if you don’t plan to start paying for a subscription in July, then you have a lot of binging to do this month.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• New York attorney Neil Squillante of TechnoLawyer discusses the TranscriptPad app from Lit Software.
• On the latest episode of the Apps in Law podcast, Brett Burney interviews Colorado attorney Ryan Kalamaya.  It is an interesting episode in which Kalamaya explains how he uses technology such as Microsoft Teams, Microsoft To Do, and more to share a law practice with other attorneys who are in different parts of the state.  And given that I just went through a big mailing list move here at iPhone J.D., I was interested to hear how he uses mailing list software to send specific communications to his clients at the outset of his representation.
• Blair Altland of 9to5Toys discusses Anker’s new Nano II GaN chargers, which are powerful but very small.
• In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell explains that when iOS 15 comes out this Fall, Apple will (for the first time) offer the option of not upgrading to the next operating system but instead continue to receive security updates for iOS 14.
• Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch discusses the improvements to multitasking in iPadOS 15 with Apple VPs Bob Borchers and Sebastien Marineau-Mes.
• Jason Snell of Six Colors notes that that iPadOS 15 features many new keyboard shortcuts.
• In a 30-minute video on YouTube, Rene Ritchie had an interesting discussion about the Apple Watch with Apple VP Kevin Lynch (who is in charge of Apple Watch) and Deidre Caldbeck of Apple marketing.
• Apple has added new detail to Apple Maps in certain cities.  Justin O’Beirne provides some great screenshots and animations that make it easy to see how the maps have improved.  Presumably, we will see similar changes roll out in additional cities.
• There are two reasons that I have no desire to put an AirTag in a men’s wallet that goes in a back pocket:  the device is too thick, and the round shape would be awkward in a wallet.  Juli Clover of MacRumors describes a product from Nomad that seems to solve the second problem, but I’m not sure that it can address the thickness.
• Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac discusses the Level Lock, a smart lock for your front door that is HomeKit compatible and that looks like (and replaces a) normal deadbolt.
• Back in 2019, I reviewed a USB-C hub for the iPad Pro called the HyperDrive 6-in-1 ($89.99 on Amazon).  I love that product because it attaches snug to the side of the iPad Pro and gives you lots of different ports.  It has been my go-to hub for the last two years.  When I upgraded to the 2021 version of the iPad Pro, at first I thought that the HyperDrive 6-in-1 would not fit the slightly thicker new iPad Pro.  But I just learned that the HyperDrive has always shipped with a somewhat larger plastic clip that was made for an older model of the iPad Pro with a screen protector.  You can use that same larger clip with the 2021 iPad Pro if you are not using a screen protector.  It took me 30 seconds to swap out the clips, and now I am back in business.  I’m glad that I can continue to use that valuable accessory with my new 12.9" iPad Pro.
• And finally, Apple created a cute video recommending that your next computer should be an iPad.  The video features a fun parody of a song from The Little Mermaid.  Worth watching:

Massachusetts attorney Bob Ambrogi, who has published LawSites since 2002, invited me to join him as a guest on this week’s episode of his show Law Insights with Bob Ambrogi, which broadcasts on LiteraTV.  We talked about lots of legal technology topics, but the focus was on Apple’s announcements last week at its WWDC conference including the preview of the iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, which are due this Fall.  I thought it was an interesting discussion.

You can watch the episode on YouTube, or I’ve embedded the video below:

Back in 2014, Apple acquired Beats Music.  I suspect that the main reasons that they acquired the company were to get the smart people working there to work for Apple and to acquire the online streaming music service that eventually became Apple Music.  But the acquisition also brought to Apple the Beats brand of headphones.  Because there are wireless versions of Beats headphones, Apple has two distinct wireless headphone brands:  AirPods and Beats. 

My AirPods Pro are one of my favorite Apple devices.  It is no exaggeration to say that I use them every single day.  I use them for work-related tasks like phone calls and videoconferences.  I use them to listen to music and podcasts.  I use them when I’m watching a video on my iPad and don’t want to bother the people around me.  And the noise cancellation works quite well.

Yesterday, Apple released the new Beats Studio Buds, a $149.99 product that is less expensive than the entry-level AirPods ($159) and yet it has many of the same advantages of AirPods Pro ($249) including active noise cancellation.  I haven’t tried the Beats Studio Buds myself, but based on the large number of initial reviews that I have read, they seem to be a reasonable alternative to AirPods and AirPods Pro.

As Chance Miller of 9to5Mac explains, the new Beats Studio Buds “feature an in-ear design similar to AirPods Pro, but without the stem.”

While AirPods currently only come in white, with the Beats Studio Pro you can choose between white, black, and red.  Like AirPods Pro, they come with silicone tips in three different sizes.  Jeff Dunn of Ars Technica says that “each earbud is exceptionally light and compact, giving off a sense of near-weightlessness in the ear.” 

The top of each of the Buds has a small physical button for playback control, switching between active noise cancellation and transparency mode, and/or accessing Siri, depending upon how you configure the buttons to work.  (You can also just say “Hey Siri” without pressing a button.)  Pressing a button controls playback, and you can assign functions to press-and-hold.  Miller notes that a downside of this design is that “it’s pretty easy to accidentally trigger one of the controls when you adjust an earbud’s fit in your ear.”

The Beats Studio Buds have a five-hour battery life (or eight hours if you don’t use noise cancellation) and 24 hours of playback with the charging case.  That’s similar to AirPods and AirPods Pro.

Most of the reviews that I read said that the sound was pretty good for a $150 device. Over-the-ear Beats headphones have a reputation for being bass-heavy, but many reviews found that to be less true for this device.

Reviewers noted that the noise cancellation works, but it is noticeably inferior to the more expensive AirPods Pro.  For example, Chris Welch of The Verge says that he “was underwhelmed in most scenarios where I tested it.”  He adds:  “The Studio Buds do a poor job at eliminating basic traffic street noise, which makes me wary of how they’d manage on a plane.  The transparency mode also lacks the natural feeling of the AirPods Pro and other premium buds like the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds.”  Similarly, Dunn notes:  “the Studio Buds’ [active noise cancellation] isn’t bad: it has a noticeable effect, and it doesn’t let chunks of outside noise come through wherever you go. …  This is just a competitive category, so while the [active noise cancellation] here is fine, it doesn’t stand out as a slam-dunk value.”  David Carnoy of Cnet reported that Beats Studio Pro “didn’t muffle the noisy HVAC unit in my apartment as well as [AirPods Pro] did, nor were they as successful at muffling New York street noise.”  Tim Gideon of PCMag says that there is a faint white noise hiss that is “a hallmark of less-than-top-notch noise cancellation.”

Some reviewers also noted that when you are using the microphone on the Beats Studio Buds to have a telephone conversation, your voice sounds more muffled compared to AirPods or AirPods Pro.  Dunn offers some recordings at the end of his review if you want to hear them for yourself.

So what are Beats Studio Buds missing that you get with AirPods or AirPods Pro?

First, there is no wireless charging case.  I rarely use this function with my AirPods Pro so I don’t consider this a big loss.  Even with AirPods, you don’t get a wireless charging case with the $159 version; you need to get the $199 version to get wireless charging.

Second, there is no in-ear detection.  When you are listening to music and you remove AirPods or AirPods Pro from an ear, the music stops.  With the Beats Studio Buds, the music continues to play.

Third, there is no instant device switching because Beats Studio Buds don’t have a W1 or H1 chip.  I enjoy using this feature with my AirPods Pro.  I can listen to music on my iPhone, pause the music and start playing a video on my iPad and the AirPods Pro switch automatically, then I can go back to my iPhone again all without having to touch any settings.

Fourth, there is no instant pairing via iCloud.  When you pair AirPods or AirPods Pro to one of your Apple devices, other Apple devices using the same iCloud account know about them.  With Beats Studio Buds, you need to manually pair to each different device.

Fifth, there is no audio sharing with another pair of headphones.

Sixth, you only get partial support for spatial audio, a feature that Apple has been pushing lately.  The Beats Studio Pro has no gyroscopes or accelerometers, so it doesn’t support head-tracking spatial audio for videos.  On the other hand, spatial audio in Apple Music seems to work for all types of headphones (even though it may sound better on some devices than others), so that does work with Beats Studio Pro.

If you are looking for something like AirPods Pro that features noise cancellation but you don’t want to spend $250 for AirPods Pro, the Beats Studio Buds seems like a reasonable alternative.  AirPods Pro are better, but they are also $100 more.  With the Beats Studio Buds, you lose a few features and the noise cancellation and microphone isn’t quite as good, but you still get a nice portable product that will work well with your Apple devices.

Click here to get Beats Studio Buds from Amazon ($149.95)

I’m interrupting the normal iPhone J.D. content for a programming note.  Although most folks read iPhone J.D. using a web browser, there are also thousands of people who have new posts show up in their email Inbox because, for about a decade, I have used a free email delivery service provided by Google called FeedBurner.  However, Google recently announced that it will soon end this service. 

And perhaps that was just as well because people would often alert me to problems with FeedBurner subscriptions.  Posts would sometimes show up late.  The message format was sometimes poor.  Any time that I embedded a video (such as at the end of most of my Friday posts), the FeedBurner email would only show a blank area with no way to access the video.  And there were other minor issues from time to time.

As a result, I recently started paying for a service called FeedBlitz, and I’ve been testing it for the last few weeks.  While not perfect, it seems to work much better. 

What does this mean for you?  If you currently subscribe to the old Google FeedBurner feed, very soon I will move the entire subscription list to FeedBlitz.  If all goes as planned, you should continue to receive emails as you always have, with no interruptions and nothing extra for you to do, but the emails will look better.  You can easily tell which service is being used because the old emails have a square icon at the top and the new emails have a full banner.  Here is an example of the old FeedBurner email followed by the new FeedBlitz email:

If this is the last iPhone J.D. email you receive, then there was clearly a problem for you.  I recommend that you try to resubscribe using the new sign-up link, located at the top right of the iPhone J.D. website.

Speaking of which, if you do not currently receive new iPhone J.D. posts via email, you might want to try it out.  You can subscribe or unsubscribe at any time, and I don’t share your email address with anyone else (other than FeedBlitz, and they have a good privacy policy).  Receiving new posts via email is a good way to learn when there is a new post, whether you read the post in your email client or click on the header to read the post on the website.  Typically, I only post a few times a week, so it is not a lot of additional email traffic in your Inbox.  On the other hand, if you are happy with the current way that you read iPhone J.D., then I suppose there is no reason to change what is not broken.

Speaking of subscriptions, I know that I speak for Brett Burney when I say that we both appreciate all of you who have subscribed to the audio version of the In the News podcast and all of you who have become a subscriber to the video version on YouTube.  If you haven’t done so yet, I encourage you to do so.  That way, the new episodes are available to you just as soon as they are released, and you can listen or watch whenever you are ready.

I hope that you enjoy the improved email service via FeedBlitz, and I apologize in advance for any problems that I wasn’t able to anticipate despite my best efforts over the last few weeks.

Episode 5 of the In the News podcast is now available.  In this week’s episode, Brett Burney and I discuss all of the news arising out of Apple’s WWDC conference this week, and then address some additional topics including the addition of spatial audio with Dolby Atmos to Apple Music. 

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares two tips.  First, he recommends swapping out the blank canvas in the Notes app for a background with lines or grids, as noted by Christine Chan of iMore.  Second, he explains how to forward text messages to different recipients:  tap and hold on a message, then tap “More,” select the messages you want to forward, and tap the arrow pointing to the right.  I recommend the Deliveries app.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast.  Or you can watch the episode on YouTube:

Apple’s WWDC conference has been taking place all this week.  And all week long, Apple has revealed — and people have discovered on their own — countless details about what is coming this Fall to the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc.  I’ve tried to capture some of the highlights in today’s post.  I find myself wishing that I could jump to September to take advantage of all of the new features now.  You can also get an early taste of the future if you enroll in Apple’s public beta program, which I suspect that Apple will open up before the end of this month, but I virtually always avoid installing beta system software on the devices that I use to get work done every day.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Voice-to-text dictation works differently in iOS 15, and attorneys will especially appreciate what is new.  The process now runs on your device, which has at least three advantages.  First, it is a little faster.  Second, the words you say don’t leave your device and go up to an Apple server, which provides additional privacy.  Third, there is no longer a time limit on how long you can speak.  California attorney David Sparks has installed the beta and tried it out.  He created a fantastic video that shows you how the new and old systems work, side-by-side.
• Sparks also talks about the new Focus Mode coming in iOS 15.
• Attorneys can do a good job of identifying the tiny details that are important.  Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories came up with a great list of small details in iOS 15 that are significant, even if they are not yet getting much attention.
• Voorhees also discusses the new privacy controls coming to iOS 15.
• Apple announced the winners of its 2021 Apple Design Awards yesterday.  All of the winning apps look very impressive.
• Is this the right time to buy an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc.?  Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal provides the answers.  (As a reminder, if you subscribe to Apple’s News+ service, you can read Wall Street Journal articles by using the steps I noted at the bottom of this post.)
• Earlier this week, I discussed Apple’s addition of spatial audio to the Apple Music service.  Micah Singleton of Billboard interviews Eddy Cue of Apple to discuss spatial audio.  (You can also read Billboard articles in News+)
• Chris Welch of The Verge wrote a great article about spatial audio and Dolby Atmos and noted that the quality of the track depends upon decisions made by the engineers who create each Dolby Atmos track.  He provides examples of tracks that are done well and tracks that are either worse or different, depending upon your perspective.
• Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac notes that in iOS 15, you can choose to simulate spatial audio for stereo tracks.
• There are lots of improvements to FaceTime in iOS 15.  In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell provides a good overview of the improvements to FaceTime.
• Dave Hamilton of The Mac Observer does a great job explaining Apple’s iCloud Private Relay service that will be a part of iOS 15 this Fall for folks with iCloud+ (any tier of the paid iCloud accounts).  Attorneys and others interested in privacy and security will be interested in this feature, which in some ways offers even more security than using a private VPN.  For example:  “Where it differs is that a VPN is generally just one server between you and the website you’re visiting. With a VPN, your traffic takes the route of You <> VPN Server <> Website. Private Relay adds another server to the mix, which ensures that no one in the chain—not even Apple—can see the whole picture: You <> Apple’s ingress server <> Content Provider’s Egress Server <> Website.”
• Killian Bell of Cult of Mac describes the new Digital Legacy feature in the upcoming iCloud+ which lets you designate another person who can access your Apple data after you die.
• iOS 15 will provide preliminary support for Matter, a new smart home standard that will allow you to work with a wide range of smart devices, as opposed to the situation today where we have Apple’s HomeKit and many competing standards.  Dan Moren of Six Colors provides an overview of Matter.
• Chance Miller of 9to5Mac points out that AirPrint is improved in iOS 15.
• If you watched the WWDC Keynote video earlier this week, every presenter was wearing an Apple Watch.  And if you pay close attention, you can see that every single one of them said that the time was 10:09.  Why?  This article from Steve Tweedie of Business Insider (written back in 2015) explains the most likely theories for why Apple always uses 10:09 on the Apple Watch.  It is an interesting attention to detail.
• Alex Guyot provides a great overview of the new features in watchOS 8 in an article for MacStories.
• If you are in the market to upgrade the Wi-Fi in your home or office, I’m a big fan of the eero.  I reviewed the eero Pro last year, which sells for $499 for three units.  But there is a big sale on Amazon on all eero devices right now, so you can get the system that I still use and love for only $349 right now.  That’s an absolute steal for a fantastic system.  Many other eero devices are also on sale.
• Here is an interesting commercial for the Apple Watch in Japan.
• And finally, the Apple TV+ service has some great shows coming soon including fan-favorite Ted Lasso.  Here is a short preview of what is coming soon:

If you subscribe to Apple Music and you own a pair of AirPods (or if you own a pair of Beats headphones with an Apple H1 or W1 chip in it), now is the time to listen to some music.  Spatial music is now available in Apple Music (at no additional cost) which means that songs produced or remastered for Dolby Atmos can now be streamed through Apple Music.  And these songs sound great.

I wrote about spatial audio a few weeks ago in this post.  But as the old saying goes (perhaps first said by Martin Mull), writing about music like dancing about architecture.  To really understand what spatial audio is about, you need to hear it yourself.  And now you can.

Apple has created some playlists in which all of the songs feature Dolby Atmos, and this is a great way to begin listening to spatial audio.  For example, the primary list is called Made for Spatial Audio and it includes over 100 songs from every different genre of music. 

You should start with the first track, Marvin Gaye:  From Mono to Stereo to Spatial, because Zane Lowe of Apple starts to play the classic song What's Going On in the original mono, then switches to stereo, and finally switches to Dolby Atmos.  This makes it easy to appreciate how much better stereo is than mono and how much better Dolby Atmos is than stereo.  You can also hear Zone Lowe do something similar with this track for the song Save Your Tears by The Weeknd. 

Apple also created playlists featuring spatial audio for the genres of Hits, Pop, Hip-Hop, Country, Rock, Classical, and Jazz.

How much of a difference does spatial audio make?  It depends.  I noticed that for some older songs that I've listened to countless times, such as Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles, I Want You Back by the Jackson 5, and The Gambler by Kenny Rogers, the difference was substantial.  I've been listening to those songs in stereo for so many years that hearing them in Dolby Atmos for the first time was pretty stunning.  The music seems much more immersive than I've ever experienced in the past.  I can more easily pick out different instruments as if they are in specific locations around me — and for the song The Gambler, it was like I've never heard each string of the guitar so clearly.  For modern songs that are already heavily produced to sound great in stereo, the Dolby Atmos version still sounded better, but the difference was less dramatic to me.  But Dolby Atmos was always an improvement.

I tested the songs using my iPhone 12 Pro and my AirPods Pro.  I also asked my wife to check it out, and she used her iPhone SE (second generation) and her AirPods (I believe the first generation).  She agreed that Dolby Atmos sounded better than stereo, but she also said that she doesn't normally pay that much attention to differences in audio quality, and thus she said that she wouldn't want to pay extra for it.  Fortunately, Apple isn't charging extra for spatial audio.  It is just a new feature of an Apple Music subscription.

Along with spatial audio, Apple also added the (optional) ability to download songs in a lossless format, if you turn that on in the Settings app.  Much as I predicted a few weeks ago, to my ears, I didn't notice any difference with lossless audio.  So after trying it for a while, I just turned it off to avoid the substantial increase in data streaming required for lossless audio.  If you can appreciate the difference of lossless audio, then you have much better hearing than I do.  But most anyone can appreciate the clear, immersive, three-dimensional sound of spatial audio.

If you subscribe to Apple Music, you should absolutely check out spatial audio for a new way to listen to music.  If you don't, now you have another reason to check out the service.

[UPDATE 6/10:  Alex Castro of The Verge wrote an excellent article on Spatial Audio and I recommend that you read it.  He identifies songs that sound great.  He also points out some songs that were remixed poorly and sound worse.  He also notes that you don't need AirPods to turn on Spatial Audio, which I did not know, although your results may vary.  And he provides a great tip for using the Control Center to quickly switch between the Dolby Atmos and stereo versions of a song so that you can easily do your own A/B test and decide what you think.]