Apple has opened a new front in the battle of the music streaming services: it's encouraging more artists and record labels to release music in spatial audio. Tracks mixed for spatial audio will get extra weighting so they appear more prominently in search results, and that increased visibility is likely to mean increased royalties too. This could mean a big audio upgrade, because it's likely to encourage rights owners to re-release older audio in spatial audio too.
The news comes via Bloomberg, quoting sources familiar with the plan. Spatial audio is supported by Apple's AirPods and HomePods, and it's a mixing option in its heavyweight music app Logic Pro X too. The idea is that if there's more spatial audio music, that'll sell more Apple headphones, earbuds and smart speakers on which to listen to it.
