Tidal Rolling Out Apple TV App on tvOS App Store

How much better is the lossless sound on my TV's built in speakers? /s

Yes, I see the sarcasm tag, but I'll post this for others anyway (who may not make the connection)...

Conceptually, many :apple:TVs are connected to the best speakers in the house: :apple:TV to Receiver to Best Speakers. This gives that kind of setup the best quality (streaming) versions of music to play on those speakers, something not available from Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora and so on. That's the benefit here- for those that hunger for highest quality (streaming) audio, Tidal is now an option to play on the best audio system likely to be in their homes.

Of course, comments have to pile up hating on it because Apple competes with Tidal and thus only Apple's offering can be worthy, but for those who can step beyond the halo, this is just another OPTION which doesn't hurt anyone who believes that Apple Music is the one and only Music streaming option for all. As such, anyone who cares about quality now has an ability to enjoy that quality on a stationary device already hooked to probably their best speakers.

Those without a great sound system for their :apple:TV are probably not the market for this option. However, they probably should be looking to make some investments there, as pretty much every other use of their :apple:TV will be improved with better quality audio hardware pumping out the sound vs. relying only on the cheap, typically terrible-quality speakers that come built into a TV... and this would likely be obviously true whether you use Tidal or any other streaming music option too.

But.. why?

This is good news for the five people subscribed to the service.

How much better is the lossless sound on my TV's built in speakers? /s

Just tried it out on my ATV3 and am impressed. The Piano Guys Wonders album track "Story of my Life" (ripped from the CD into iTunes on my Mac with Apple Lossless) is listed as having a 709 kbps bitrate in iTunes. Tidal shows it streaming at 736 kbps in the Tidal app on the Apple TV. "Let it Go" on the same album shows as 795 in iTunes and 822.30 in Tidal. I assume the extra 27 kbps in both cases is the extra overhead due to streaming. Unfortunately the developer HUD doesn't show what rate the native Apple TV music app plays the track.

Stage Four (Deluxe Edition) which my Meridian Explorer says is MQA studio 88K/96K streams at 1.05 Mbps which is greater than the CD quality ~700 kbps, but a bit less than the MQA 24/96 1.5 Mbps.

I agree with you, and I am glad you saw the sarcasm tag. The issue for me isn't that they compete with Apple. It's good to see other options (as long as their content is available elsewhere). What I take issue with is the existance of the lossless option.

Why take issue with a non-mandatory, nothing-forced-on-you OPTION?

Or rather, I take issue with the fact that they have a lossless option but they charge a premium for it.

In what service offering is better quality not generally sold at a higher price? Much of the "Apple Tax" is rationalized on buying better quality. And again, it's just an option, not forced on anyone, much like 4K video is just an option for the video crowd, as is 1080p, as is 720p. Apple has long charged more for the higher quality video file than the lower quality one. Do you also take issue with Apple for doing that?

Apparently, Apple is arguing that iPhone X is a superior phone to iPhone 8 and pricing it accordingly. Do you take issue with that?

Generally higher quality offerings of anything will be priced higher than lower quality versions.

They sell it as if the lossless is the way the artist wanted you to hear the music. They say that lossless is a better experience and then actively advertise their sale of cheap replicas of their music. Every musician who signed with them is basically saying "don't take me serious as an artist." It's one thing if the artists didn't have a say, but they did, and they chose to sign a contract with Tidal. A contract that they new came with the corruption of their works. They could have sold their music independently, or via another platform that agreed to offer the music at a higher bitrate. They didn't. They sold out, and are OK with their content being comercialized and packaged like a poster of the Mona Lisa in museum gift shop.

As to all that, I don't quite know what to say to that. Conceptually, if an Artist cares about their creations, they probably DO want those creations to be experienced in the best quality way possible. I assume if I'm a musician, I'd much rather my work be heard lossless than lossy, unless perhaps the latter made me more money if my art had a good layer of capitalism blended into it.

If they are saying "don't take me serious as an artist" because they offer a lossless version on Tidal, they must be saying that even more loudly by offering a lossy version on Apple Music and others.

Are you saying that if they chose to sign that (presumably exclusive) contract with Apple Music, they wouldn't be choosing to offer a greater "corruption of their works"?

What is another fairly mainstream streaming service platform that they could have chosen instead of Tidal, that would not have been offering the same "corruption of their works"? Lossless is lossless. Even if you can identify another, a lossless song there is going to be exactly the same as it is on Tidal.

And how did they "sell out" with Tidal but would not "sell out" had they chosen to offer their music with any other middleman business, including Apple?

Lots of musicians trying to do it as a career are wanting to monetize their "art." To some degree, just about all of them have to "sell out" to do that. I'm not seeing how Tidal in particular can be a particularly bad channel for artists, given that Tidal is putting quality of the product above the other major players. If anything- at least from my perspective- opting for the niche offering that is Tidal instead of doing an exclusive with a mainstream offering like Apple or Spotify seems to be closer to the opposite of selling out (choosing to make less money than they probably could if they chose to go with a more mainstream streaming music distributor).

Love this move. Will be able to stream Tidal concerts and videos over my TV then to audio system.

I doubt this is comprehensive but here's a possible list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:ITunes-exclusive_releases I regularly see that this album or that album is exclusive to iTunes for some period of time. For example:

* https://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/29/drake-new-album-views-available-itunes/
* https://www.imore.com/new-music-itunes-exclusive-album-eric-church-deals-80s-hits-pre-order-new-coldplay
* https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/9/6126711/u2-releases-its-new-album-for-free-today-exclusively-on-itunes
* http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2785389/John-Lennon-s-solo-catalogue-available-Spotify-music-The-Beatles-STILL-exclusive-iTunes.html

If you do a search for "music exclusive to iTunes" you'll get plenty of search results.

If you think iTunes beyond just music, there were just announcements about a variety of video content in development that will be exclusive to iTunes.

In short, iTunes does it too. So if we're going to hate Tidal for exclusivity, we should feel similarly toward Apple (iTunes). OR, if we can't send hate toward iTunes because it is Apple, maybe we lighten up on Tidal too?

Once again, Tidal is just an OPTION here. For those that care about music quality, it's the best streaming service because it offers the highest quality music files. For those that don't care so much about quality, it's only a more expensive, less expansive option that can be used or not used just like any other :apple:TV app.

I'm no burning Tidal fan but I can't fault any options coming to :apple:TV that brings along better quality content. It's just options. It's completely "take it or leave it." I certainly will not detest any service that is trying to bring me higher quality content. Similarly, I don't "hate" Amazon Prime's arrival even though Apple has much of the same video available, nor the availability of Netflix, Hulu, etc. Options are good. Competition is good. With nothing forced on any of us, we should welcome more options with open arms (whether we (ourselves) choose to actually use such options or not).

What is this ‘Tidal?’

A vanity project by some celebrities.

Artists trying to profit from their own creations.