Apple announced at WWDC 2021 that lossless audio, alongside Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos, was rolling out on Monday to all or any Apple Music subscribers.
Yet the new feature could be causing some issues with Apple’s alarm feature on both the iPhone and iPad, consistent with our tests and users online. Since updating to iOS 14.6 and enjoying lossless and spatial audio, three of my morning alarms in the week have borked. On Wednesday, I got the bog-standard alarm tone (although the alarm feature on iOS often does this to me from time to time to stay on my toes anyway). What’s strange is that on both Friday and Saturday, I missed my Alarm completely and was instead woken by my wife. Both times I picked up my phone to ascertain the Alarm was going off silently, I could tap, sleep or stop, but it made no sound whatsoever whenever I had selected an equivalent song that supports Apple’s new lossless audio.
Bewildered, we’ve run some tests, and it seems that because it stands, the alarm feature on iOS (I’m on 14.6) cannot play lossless audio or Dolby Atmos tracks as an alarm sound. It either reverts to the default alarm tone or, worse, delivers the aforementioned silent Alarm. I assumed I used to be losing my mind, but it isn’t just me. the matter has since been raised on the Apple Support communities forum, user fashion writes:
My iPhone and my iPad can’t play the music with the Lossless label within the Alarm. If I set the music without the Lossless label, the Alarm can explode.
Models:
iPhone X running iOS 14.6
iPad Pro (9.7-inch) running iOS14.6
These reports are protected by a thread within the Apple Music reddit which reads, “As the title says…after turning on lossless, my Alarm doesn’t play the song chosen from Apple Music. It’s just vibrating. Luckily the iPhone features a great haptic motor, and therefore the vibration alone woke me lol Does anyone have any ideas?”. Two further users chimed in, stating:
I have an equivalent issue. My iPhone and my iPad can’t play the music with the Lossless label within the Alarm. If I set the music without the Lossless label, the Alarm can explode.
And:
Same story. I found out Alarm on my iPad that does not have vibration, so I just missed it yesterday 🙁
Apple’s Alarm on the iPhone is wonky at the simplest of times, but I’ve never encountered a bug where alarms consistently explode without making any noise before. As other users have noted, the vibrations still seem to figure, but I do not use these, so I was left sleeping soundly on Saturday once I should are at the gym.
If you’ve had any similar issues, please let us know down within the comments or over Twitter. Hopefully, if there are a couple of people experiencing issues, this is often likely a software bug that Apple can fix quickly. We’ve reached bent Apple for comment in the meantime and can keep you updated!
