Apple Music Launches 'Digital Masters' Initiative Out of Old 'Mastered for iTunes' Program

by

Apple Music today announced a new initiative called the "Apple Digital Masters" program, which aims to combine all of its "Mastered for iTunes" songs into one streaming catalog (via Billboard).

apple music august 2019
According to Apple, it's slowly been introducing Mastered for iTunes songs into ‌Apple Music‌ for some time. The company said that 75 percent of the Top 100 songs in the U.S. are Apple Digital Masters, and 71 percent of the Top 100 global songs are also part of the new program.

Apple began the Mastered for iTunes program in 2012, allowing engineers to optimize music for the digital download format by encoding from high-resolution masters. This placed the iTunes songs as close to possible as the original master recordings, and were designated specially as "Mastered for iTunes" in the store.

In ‌Apple Music‌, Apple doesn't designate whether a song is under its Digital Masters program or not. Still, for people who care about lossless audio, it's a good sign that the company has formally acknowledged a plan to move forward with adding more high-quality audio tracks to ‌Apple Music‌.

Numerous other streaming music services have lossless audio plans that are priced separately from the standard streaming tiers. Namely, Tidal offers a HiFi subscription for $19.99/month (compared to the base $9.99/month plan) that lets users stream lossless audio on demand.

Tag: Apple Music Guide

Popular Stories

iOS 26 Battery Glass Feature

iPhone 16 Pro Max 80% Charge Limit: One Year Later, Was It Worth It?

Wednesday September 24, 2025 3:58 pm PDT by
With the iPhone 15 series, I did an experiment and kept my iPhone's Charge Limit set at 80 percent for an entire year. It provided an interesting look at the impact of charge limits on battery longevity, so I decided to repeat it for the iPhone 16 line. Since September 2024, my iPhone 16 Pro Max has been limited to an 80 percent charge, with no cheating. As of today, my battery's maximum...
Read Full Article • 549 comments
AirPods Pro 3 Newsroom

Apple's 'Back to School' Offer Ends Soon, Now Applies to AirPods Pro 3

Wednesday September 24, 2025 7:20 am PDT by
Apple's annual "Back to School" promotion for students ends soon, so act fast if you want to score free AirPods with the purchase of an eligible new Mac or iPad. Until Tuesday, September 30, college students and qualifying educational staff in the U.S. can receive free AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation when they purchase an eligible new Mac or iPad from Apple. This is a $179 value. ...
Read Full Article • 17 comments
iphone 17 pro dark blue 1

Apple Blames In-Store MagSafe Chargers for iPhone 17 Pro Display Model Scratches

Wednesday September 24, 2025 10:22 am PDT by
The marks on the iPhone 17 Pro models that people have noticed at Apple retail stores are caused by the chargers that Apple uses, Apple confirmed today. Apple told 9to5Mac that worn MagSafe charging stands in stores are causing marks on the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max. Apple says that the marks are not scratches, and are instead material transfer from the stand to the phone. The...
Read Full Article • 217 comments
iPhone 17 Pro Colors

Skipped the iPhone 17 Pro? Here's What is Rumored for iPhone 18 Pro

Tuesday September 23, 2025 8:55 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are still a year away, there are already a few rumors about the devices that offer an early look ahead. Below, we have recapped some of the early iPhone 18 Pro rumors so far. This story was published previously, and it has been updated to reflect the latest rumors. Many early rumors prove to be true, but nothing is confirmed yet, and Apple's...
Read Full Article • 106 comments
Home Hub Command Center with Dome Base Feature

Apple Working on All-New Operating System

Thursday September 25, 2025 1:11 pm PDT by
Apple is developing an all-new operating system codenamed "Charismatic," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple smart home hub concept based on rumors This is likely Apple's long-rumored "homeOS" operating system. In a report last month, Gurman said both Apple's rumored smart home hub in 2026 and tabletop robot in 2027 will run the new operating system. He said the software platform ...
Read Full Article
iOS 26

Everything New in iOS 26.1 Beta 1

Monday September 22, 2025 12:44 pm PDT by
Apple released the first beta of iOS 26.1 today, just a week after launching iOS 26. iOS 26.1 mainly adds new languages to Apple Intelligence, but there are a few other features that are worth knowing about. New Apple Intelligence Languages Apple Intelligence is now available in Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese. AirPo...
Read Full Article • 137 comments
ios 26 digital id passport wallet

Apple Confirms iOS 26 Wallet Passport Feature is Coming in 2025

Tuesday September 23, 2025 1:06 pm PDT by
Digital ID, the iOS 26 feature that lets U.S. passport holders add their passports to the Wallet app, is coming later in 2025, Apple confirmed today. Apple updated the release timing wording of Digital ID on its iOS 26 features page. "Digital ID will be coming later this year with US passports only," it reads. Prior to today, the footnote for the feature said "Digital ID will be available ...
Read Full Article • 75 comments
apple tv 4k new orange

Next Apple TV Expected to Launch This Year With These New Features

Monday September 22, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
The next Apple TV is expected to be released later this year, and a handful of new features and changes have been rumored for the device. Below, we recap what to expect from the next Apple TV, according to rumors. Likely Features N1 Chip With Wi-Fi 7 Last year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the next Apple TV would be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, which is...
Read Full Article • 97 comments
iPhone 17 Pro USB C Port

iPhone 17 Pro Max's USB-C Charging Speeds Tested With Apple Chargers

Monday September 22, 2025 7:29 am PDT by
The website ChargerLAB has tested the iPhone 17 Pro Max's USB-C charging speeds with a variety of Apple's chargers, from 18W to 140W. The device reached a peak charging speed of around 36W with the following Apple chargers:40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max 61W USB-C Power Adapter 67W USB-C Power Adapter 70W USB-C Power Adapter 96W USB-C Power Adapter 140W USB-C Power AdapterFor...
Read Full Article • 56 comments

Top Rated Comments

dannyyankou Avatar
dannyyankou
80 months ago
How about the studio masters in lossless bit rate? That would be nice.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
happyprozak Avatar
happyprozak
80 months ago
Im still hoping Apple will just buy Tidal and input all the good from them into Apple Music..but I’m glad to see them start someplace
There are many claims from people that they believe lossless sounds better but there has yet to be a study where people can prove it in a blind test. It is very easy to be fooled into thinking something sounds better, a placebo type of effect occurs and people do not realize it.

Apple pushing properly mastered music does a lot more for sound quality than simply pushing lossless will ever do.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jonblatho Avatar
jonblatho
80 months ago
The article seems to muddy the waters on this, but Mastered for iTunes (and Apple Digital Masters, presumably) isn't lossless. People who "care about lossless audio," though I'm not one of them, are unlikely to be all that impressed by this. It's an improvement over standard Apple Music tracks, but the tracks are still certainly lossy.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CaTOAGU Avatar
CaTOAGU
80 months ago
There are many claims from people that they believe lossless sounds better but there has yet to be a study where people can prove it in a blind test. It is very easy to be fooled into thinking something sounds better, a placebo type of effect occurs and people do not realize it.

Apple pushing properly mastered music does a lot more for sound quality than simply pushing lossless will ever do.
Pretty much this.

Even on very expensive gear into the $10k range it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between a well encoded 256kbps AAC track and a lossless track at any bitrate/resolution. Correct mastering matters FAR more than simply releasing lossless tracks will ever do.

If audio quality matters to you, invest in a better pair of headphones and/or speakers. A good separates amplifier even a very modestly priced one will do a better job than the one in your phone. If you're using speakers, good quality cable matters, it doesn't really matter what (digital) coax, hdmi or optical cable you use. You can build from there if you want. Only after you've exhausted all those details to the point you're flat broke and close to ruin should you even consider lossless audio as an option, and even then you're better off spending the money on whisky.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jeffkoontz Avatar
jeffkoontz
80 months ago
If you want to get into the weeds of why mastered for itunes might be better than any old AAC file, Apple provides a pretty thorough breakdown on how their process limits clipping, aliasing, dithering, etc. here: https://images.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/docs/mastered_for_itunes.pdf

Apple lossless through Apple Music (ala Tidal HD) would be nice, however, I do question how many people consider where their weak links are.. If you are listening to music via bluetooth through a car that doesnt event support AAC - you'd totally be wasting bandwidth. Even if you listen through proprietary Beats/Apple headphones/earpods via bluetooth you are still going to convert to AAC when the signal goes out to your phones. So, yes it would be great for everyone listening to Apple Music while wearing lightning connected headphones with a quality D/A converter, but what Apple is doing with Mastered for iTunes is probably really good for most real world use situations.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JeffPerrin Avatar
JeffPerrin
80 months ago
Backstory on 'Mastered for iTunes':

Lossy formats are unforgiving with loud audio levels or peaking near the clipping point. "Mastered for iTunes" gives producers the tools and information to encode and monitor their audio so that it does not clip or distort when encoded to iTunes' lossy format. It's pretty much about making lossy-encoded music suck less. :p

This latest announcement, however, is likely just marketing speak since Apple is ditching the iTunes moniker for it's Music service...
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments