Lack of gapless playback in IOS

By Graham, 30 November, 2021

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi,

I subscribe to Apple Music and on the whole I’m satisfied with it.
However one thing drives me round the bend.
Both on my iPhone 12 pro and iPad pro both running IOS14.8 if I’m listening to an album that doesn’t have gaps between tracks, As an example, Dark Side of The Moon (Pink Floyd) Apple Music inserts a half second or so gap. Or often when listening to an album the track finishes, you get a half second of the next track, then a half second or so gap before the track re-starts.

What is even more odd about this behaviour, I have just acquired an Android Pixel phone and guess what, using Apple music for Android the gaps disappear.

Has anyone any ideas what is going on?

Warm regards

Graham

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Comments

By Crunchynut on Monday, January 10, 2022 - 23:44

Hi,
Did you ever get a response to this? I am also bugged by there being no sound for the first second of some tracks, which seems linked to the same problem.

By Graham on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 10:20

Hi,

No. I contacted Apple music support with no joy. So I've now signed up with Amazon music unlimited and it works great. I've just got to transfer my playlists over and that will be that.
If you have an Android phone, you should find Apple Music works perfectly well on that platform.

Best

Graham

By Crunchynut on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 10:30

Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
Is it possible to transfer (export) the playlist from Apple Music into Amazon music, or is it a manual task?

By Malcolm13 on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 11:10

I too have been plagued by this problem on my iPhone 12 Pro Max and it still occurred on iOS 15. It does not matter whether the album is downloaded to the device or streamed. I know other people that have the same issue. I have done a reset and set up as new device I have disabled all the enhancements such as lossless playback but I cannot resolve this problem.

By Crunchynut on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 15:40

Please could you tell me what DAC you are using (hi-fi DAC, Apple TV, Chromecast etc) just in case it is a receiving device problem rather than a sending device (IOS) problem?

My set up is iPad mini 5 or iPhone 12 mini, to iFi Zen Stream, to RME ADI-2 DAC

By Graham on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 16:16

Hi,

Yes you can transfer playlists from Apple Music to Amazon. However I think you need to purchase software to enable one to do this. I din't know how accessible this software will turn out to be but once I've done it I'll let you know.
For playback I stream from my Iphone12 pro, Ipad Pro 3rd edition and Macbook pro 13 2014 vintage to my Sony WH1000XM4/Sony WF1000xm4/Apple Airpod pros and Airpod3 headphones.

Best

Graham

By Manuel on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 16:47

Hi,
This is a long-standing issue with Lossless Audio. Have you enabled that option under Settings > Music > Audio Quality?

By Crunchynut on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 17:06

Hi,
Yes I am using lossless.
Is it understood and Apple will fix, or is the issue off the radar?

By Malcolm13 on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 17:44

I have tried disabling lossless audio but this has had no effect for me. I have tried a variety of devices and the bug is even apparent when playing music through the iPhones internal speakers.

By Crunchynut on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 18:09

Wow - that is a revelation that it happens when not ‘sending’ the audio anywhere. I must try that.

By Malcolm13 on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 19:04

This appears to help on albums I have tried so far.

Go into Settings and Music.

Swipe to Audio Quality. In here leave Lossless as on. Continue to swipe right and you’ll have options for Mobile Data, Wi-Fi and Stored Music. Set each of these to High Quality, AAC 256 kbps. See if this resolves the problem.

By gailisaiah on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 19:46

OK. In the middle of this Apple Music discussion, just one question. What does lossless mean?

By Crunchynut on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 19:46

@Malcolm13 - My experience is different - if I play to my ‘earfun’ bluetooth IEMs I don’t have any incidents of the first half a second or so of a track being silent. But if I am using Airplay to my DAC then I do (using the same music played on Apple Music - lossless). That suggests to me it is an Airplay issue. However @Graham was presumably using Bluetooth to his Sony Headphones, so can’t be just Airplay. Confusing. We need more insight into the different set-ups and symptoms from others. Keep it coming …..

By Crunchynut on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - 20:14

@gailisaiah - Lossless is an audio format whereby there has been no loss in audio detail between the (at least) CD quality recording and the streamed or downloaded music file. For example, if you listen to mp3, these are compressed files in which some detail is thrown away in order to make the file smaller. Lossless files are larger because nothing is thrown away, though they may still be delivered in a compressed file, but the file is reconstituted to full size (no detail lost) by the client. WAV - lossless file uncompressed. FLAC, ALAC - lossless files that are compressed for transport / storage. MP3, AAC - compressed files with some loss of detail.

By gailisaiah on Wednesday, January 12, 2022 - 13:17

Thanks, Crunchynut! Great explanation.