In an interview with AllThingsD, recording artist Neil Young revealed that he had discussed high definition music formats with Apple's Steve Jobs prior to his death.
The interview is summarized by CNet, in which Young claims that MP3s have just "5 percent of the data present in the original recording." Young is concerned that there is no suitable high definition available to consumers.
Higher definition music, of course, would require much larger files. Young reportedly approached Apple and specifically Steve Jobs about it:
When asked if Young had approached Apple about the idea, Young said that he had, in fact, met with Jobs and was "working on it," but that "not much" ended up happening to the pursuit.
Of note, Young made mention that Jobs was a vinyl fan, despite having helmed the company that would spearhead the way people listened to and purchased digital music.
Apple presently offers their iTunes Music store at a quality of 256 kbps AACs. Apple does support a lossless audio format that can be used on their iPods and iPhones, but these files take up considerably more space than standard AAC files, and are not sold on the iTunes store. Based on the interview, it seems there is no present interest from Apple in such an offering.
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models.
In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB.
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Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips.
The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
Sunday October 12, 2025 7:05 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple plans to announce new products "this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Apple's "Mac Your Calendars" teaser last October
In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the products set to be updated this week include the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and "likely" the base 14-inch MacBook Pro, with all three likely to receive a spec bump with Apple's next-generation M5 chip.
Gurman...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by Juli Clover
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below.
MacBook Pro
M5...
Tuesday October 14, 2025 11:59 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak today teased the launch of an upcoming product, saying "something powerful is coming" on social media.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
A short animation accompanying Joswiak's teaser reveals a brief glimpse of a MacBook Pro along with the words "coming soon." The shape of the MacBook Pro is a V, which is the Roman numeral...
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version?
According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band.
The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM.
With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac.
M5 Chip
The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip.
The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store.
In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....
Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year.
The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Apple does offer lossless music on the iTunes Store. As part of their agreement with the Beetles, Apple can only sell their music in lossless.
Finally some one that speaks my language. I'm 31 and in remember that in past people used to have an hi-fi system an listen to vinyl and CD. Today people listen to music in crappy pc speaker and ipod headphones. Most people don't have hi-fi system. That's not evolution!:confused:
As someone who greatly appreciates high fidelity audio, I've got to say, high definition (aka. lossless) music is rather pointless.
The difference between a 256 kbps AAC file and a lossless file is incredibly minor - especially with the audio equipment that the vast majority of people use. Even to a discerning listener with high quality speakers or a great pair of headphones, the difference will still be very minor. Once you've reached 256kbps, you've passed the point where diminishing returns has taken over any additional data is hardly noticeable - even to an audiophile.
Besides, as long as record producers keep releasing overly compressed, loudness war'd garbage, most music will continue to sound horrible regardless. In most cases, upgrading to lossless music would be like offering a multi-vitamin to someone who has just had his legs blown off. The level of dynamic range compression that exists throughout the music industry is many orders of magnitude more significant in harming overall sound quality than the 256kbps bitrate is.
Voted Down for the comment about Lossless being Pointless (although I'm definitely an Audiophile AND a Pedant)...Voted Up for the level of DRC being far more detrimental! ;-)
Screw Apple Lossless though...What we need is support for FLAC or some other true Open-Source format on iPod/iPhone.
Apple Lossless is open source under the Apache 2.0 license.
