Apple Music is getting two big updates next month: support for high-quality, lossless audio and for spatial audio through Dolby Atmos. But even more surprising, the features will be available for free to all subscribers, including those on family and student plans. The company says it’ll have 75 million lossless audio songs in its catalog by the end of the year and 20 million to start. Apple has confirmed that lossless audio is exclusive to Apple Music and thus subscription-only. The company won’t offer music purchases in lossless quality, nor will there be any way to upgrade owned tracks to lossless with the paid iTunes Match service. Spatial audio and Dolby Atmos audio could prove to be an even bigger deal for Apple Music listeners. It’ll provide more immersive mixes for anyone listening through recent AirPods or Beats headphones that use the H1 or W1 chip. Spatial audio will also play through the built-in speakers on the latest versions of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac by default. Lossless audio is now becoming standard across the biggest music streaming apps.

Clubhouse is all set to expand its new Android app to more countries

After launching its Android app a while ago, social audio platform Clubhouse said it will roll out to more countries in the coming weeks. The Android app will be first available in Brazil, Japan, and Russia, and then in Nigeria and the “rest of the world” throughout the further weeks. For the first year, Clubhouse was only available on iOS devices. Despite its early limited access Clubhouse grew to 10 million users in its inaugural year, and was recently valued at $4 billion after a new funding round. Whether it can keep up that momentum remains to be seen, as competitors – Twitter’s Spaces, Discord’s Stage Channels, and other better-known social media platforms – enter the audio market. Clubhouse remains invite-only and has been criticised for not providing automatic captions for Deaf and hard-of-hearing users. The platform has lately focused on creators, and recently announced the results of an accelerator program which will fund 50 audio Clubhouse shows. CEO Paul Davison said during the weekly Clubhouse town hall that next on the company’s roadmap is in-room tipping for creators, paid events, and subscriptions.