I find the 100 mb limit on downloads, for apps and video, over cellular, a real limitation. Without that I would never need wifi and could just have a cellular provider. With the restriction I have to have home wifi too. With so many people having unlimited and high data plans it is not necessary and really annoying. It also uses more data to stream sometimes than it does to download. I wish Apple would change this too!
Are they just encoding it as 96/24 or are actually getting 96/24 (or better) from the source? Have there been any blind tests between HD Tracks and iTunes Store (and others)?
They are getting high-resolution files from the record companies. There are a lot of older recordings that are getting remastered in hi-res. Of course, most contemporary recordings are recorded and mixed in hi-res, then down sampled.
I don't know anything about blind tests between HDtracks and iTunes.
Personally, I think there's a difference between hi-res audio and 256Kbps AAC, but the differences are most notable in decent listening environment (good headphones or good speakers in a decent room) and with certain kinds of music (classical and jazz mostly).
I think 256Kbps AAC is fine for your typical contemporary music (pop, rock, rap, whatever) especially if you are listening while driving, walking around with your smartphone, etc.
For me, the point of diminishing returns is at 48kHz/24-bit. Curiously, this is the limit that an iPod or iOS device can play.
If I buy/acquire hi-res audio tracks (like 96kHz/24-bit or even higher), I will convert to 48kHz/24-bit ALAC for my iPod classic (a separate iTunes library) and to 320Kbps AAC for my iPhone (my main iTunes library). I keep the original hi-res files in a separate hi-res iTunes library. At this time, I don't believe there's a way to just have one library and have different conversions per device.
I occasionally rip hi-res audio from DVDs and Blu-rays (again, mostly classical stuff), which usually ends up being 96kHz/24-bit PCM. Again, I go through the conversion process for my iPod classic and iPhone.
One argument is that hi-res tracks down sampled by professionals will result in small files that are nearly imperceptible in quality to the hi-res files. These people claim that audio quality degradation is often introduced by consumer transcoding, like ripping a hi-res 24-bit file using consumer software.
I should really buy one of the iTunes tracks from the same recording as a 96kHz/24-bit track just as a comparison.
Edit: okay, I just bought an iTunes track of something I have in 96kHz/24-bit ALAC from HDtracks, plus my own 48kHz/24-bit ALAC rip via XLD. I will use iTunes to rip 256kbps & 320kbps AACs from the hi-res track. I'll listen to all five on my MacBook using Amarra plugged into a Cambridge Audio Azur DacMagic 100 into my stereo system.
I find the 100 mb limit on downloads, for apps and video, over cellular, a real limitation. Without that I would never need wifi and could just have a cellular provider. With the restriction I have to have home wifi too. With so many people having unlimited and high data plans it is not necessary and really annoying. It also uses more data to stream sometimes than it does to download. I wish Apple would change this too!
"So many"?
My impression is that unlimited is rare, and that multi-gigabyte plans are still expensive enough that few would want to fritter their allowance away on app doe wolds and updates.
Well it might be about time that they allow developers to release patches then. I do have unlimited broadband at home but downloading 2GB each time there is a few changes to Infinity Blade 3 is wearing a bit thin.
Well it might be about time that they allow developers to release patches then. I do have unlimited broadband at home but downloading 2GB each time there is a few changes to Infinity Blade 3 is wearing a bit thin.
I thought they already did allow that, or was that only with their iOS updates?
Edit: okay, I just bought an iTunes track of something I have in 96kHz/24-bit ALAC from HDtracks, plus my own 48kHz/24-bit ALAC rip via XLD. I will use iTunes to rip 256kbps & 320kbps AACs from the hi-res track. I'll listen to all five on my MacBook using Amarra plugged into a Cambridge Audio Azur DacMagic 100 into my stereo system.
Okay, I just tried testing the various files. There are a lot of caveats with my testing methodology since I didn't do a blind test, nor did I test multiple pieces with different types of equipment, but anyhow, here are my personal observations for one piece of music on one system.
My test track was the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony "Choral", the instrumental part before the "Ode to Joy" section, specifically the benchmark 1962 Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic recording which has been recently rereleased as a 96kHz/24-bit offering. I focused on the portion around the 3:03 mark when the cellos are pianissimo. I have several other recordings of this piece; those tracks were not used in casual test. The point is that I am very familiar with this piece.
Sample size makes a difference. 24-bits does seem to provide more dynamic range than 16-bits, but 16-bits is enough to provide a high-quality finished product (like CD audio).
Sample rate doesn't make a difference, at least at the finished product level: 44.1kHz is sufficient. Higher sample rates might be more helpful in the recording and mixing phases, like 24-bit sample sizes.
It was nearly impossible to hear any difference between my own ripped 320kbps AAC file, Apple's iTunes Store 256kbps purchased track, or even my own 256kbps variable bit-rate AAC (the "iTunes Plus" preset).
None of this matters if you are in a listening situation where your entire concentration isn't on the music, like if you are walking, driving, or working. This was a bit revealing. I would have had a nearly impossible time discerning the differences had I not been totally focused on the sound.
Conclusions:
If you are listening to standard contemporary music (rock, pop, rap, hip-hop, country, most other things on the radio), forget about hi-res audio. Either buy the songs at the iTunes Store or buy the CD and rip using the iTunes Plus preset (optimized to convert from 44.1kHz/16-bit sources). Chances are the iTunes Store files will actually be marginally better, but hey, at least you have a CD to playback.
If you are listening to classical/jazz, and you have a beloved work, go ahead and buy the hi-res track, but if you need to convert the file to play on a specific device (like an iPhone), use a common multiple for the sample rate conversion and try to avoid sample size conversion. For example, if you buy a 176.4kHz/24-bit album, you can convert to 44.1kHz/24-bit, but avoid converting to 16-bit sample size. Or just buy the used CD if it's not one of your all-time faves.
Apple's iTunes Store engineers do a pretty good job at providing a high quality, low bitrate audio file from whatever source file that the record company uploads, a better job than Joe Consumer can do with his own audio conversion software.
Don't spend lots of money on hi-res tracks. Instead, save your money for better speakers if you care about better audio, or just buy more music. An extra two hundred dollars on speakers will go a lot farther than spending the same amount on 192kHz/24-bit tracks. Alternatively, buy concert tickets for live performances with the money you didn't spend on hi-res tracks.
Notes:
I did not listen with headphones since I avoid them in general. I have a pair of Grado SR-80's, but since I rarely use them, I didn't bother here.
Equipment: MacBook Air, Cambridge Audio Azur DacMagic 100, Amarra 3.0 music software (as well as tests with iTunes and Audacity), generic Sony A/V receiver, JBL tower speakers. Alternate playback software: iTunes 12.1.x, Audacity 2.0.x. Conversion software: XLD version 20141129
In other news, Android announced "Malware Test Flight" allowing viruses and security flaws to be rapidly deployed to large numbers of users. This benefit is extended to users of older versions as well.
I believe that this is the non compressed limit. Some games then load extra stuff once it is installed to work around this. Either way I hope this will open the doors to more complex polished console level games...many great games out there but a long way to go to hit the quality of PC/Console game titles...
It's the compressed limit. It should be around the size of your ipa file but I've found a lot of inconsistencies between how my Mac reports the size of the file and how iTunes Connect reports it once uploaded.
This may be partially my fault. I have several 2GB apps and for some time have been asking Apple to increase the app size limit. My apps are big because they contain offline map data. The 2GB limit meant I had to split the USA into four sections. The biggest problem I faced was that every time I did an update, the OpenStreetMap database I use gets bigger and more details so my app sizes increased. That meant I had to remove some data by shrinking the coverage or lose some types of data in my more recent updates. With a 4GB limit, all that data can come back but I bet some users will have difficulty downloading 3+ GB of data from the App Store. As far as I know the App Store still downloads a zipped file and then decompresses it. That means that for a 3+ GB app you would need 6 or 7 GB of free storage just to install it.
Well it might be about time that they allow developers to release patches then. I do have unlimited broadband at home but downloading 2GB each time there is a few changes to Infinity Blade 3 is wearing a bit thin.
Delta updates are supported but it's a bit of a black art. Sometimes delta updates will work, sometimes they won't. As a developer, I've yet to find exactly what causes a full app patch.
The latest GTA V that will be released on PC in about a month won't have a Mac port either. These should run ok in Bootcamp though.
V will probably take better hardware than any Mac has, though.
On highest quality it might but it ran on the PS3/360 originally. Recommended requirements are a desktop NVidia 660. This is around the same as the 780M in the iMac and these GPUs are roughly 3x the mobile GPUs like the 650M/750M. If Skylake comes around then the mobile GPUs should be roughly doubling in performance so it should be ok. 65GB install size though so not making its way to iOS anytime soon with a 4GB limit.
I have several 2GB apps and for some time have been asking Apple to increase the app size limit. My apps are big because they contain offline map data. The 2GB limit meant I had to split the USA into four sections.
It would probably be best in cases like that to use in-app downloads. The base app would be very small and you can even split the data by state so that when the data is updated, it's a very small update for the end user. They'd just update their content pack.
Games could use this to get around the size limits so 4GB base install for say levels 1-5 and then each subsequent 5 levels is a 4GB download. They can have a mechanism in games to delete the played levels if there's not a lot of free space.
I guess it is good that they changed the base storage of iOS devices to 32GB instead of 16GB....oh wait
-kpluck
90% of people are probably fine with 16GB. ie, my parents have had iPhones for years and have not even approached the storage limit. It seems wasteful to have a base of 32GB devices when its not need for so many.
Comments
Are they just encoding it as 96/24 or are actually getting 96/24 (or better) from the source? Have there been any blind tests between HD Tracks and iTunes Store (and others)?
They are getting high-resolution files from the record companies. There are a lot of older recordings that are getting remastered in hi-res. Of course, most contemporary recordings are recorded and mixed in hi-res, then down sampled.
I don't know anything about blind tests between HDtracks and iTunes.
Personally, I think there's a difference between hi-res audio and 256Kbps AAC, but the differences are most notable in decent listening environment (good headphones or good speakers in a decent room) and with certain kinds of music (classical and jazz mostly).
I think 256Kbps AAC is fine for your typical contemporary music (pop, rock, rap, whatever) especially if you are listening while driving, walking around with your smartphone, etc.
For me, the point of diminishing returns is at 48kHz/24-bit. Curiously, this is the limit that an iPod or iOS device can play.
If I buy/acquire hi-res audio tracks (like 96kHz/24-bit or even higher), I will convert to 48kHz/24-bit ALAC for my iPod classic (a separate iTunes library) and to 320Kbps AAC for my iPhone (my main iTunes library). I keep the original hi-res files in a separate hi-res iTunes library. At this time, I don't believe there's a way to just have one library and have different conversions per device.
I occasionally rip hi-res audio from DVDs and Blu-rays (again, mostly classical stuff), which usually ends up being 96kHz/24-bit PCM. Again, I go through the conversion process for my iPod classic and iPhone.
One argument is that hi-res tracks down sampled by professionals will result in small files that are nearly imperceptible in quality to the hi-res files. These people claim that audio quality degradation is often introduced by consumer transcoding, like ripping a hi-res 24-bit file using consumer software.
I should really buy one of the iTunes tracks from the same recording as a 96kHz/24-bit track just as a comparison.
Edit: okay, I just bought an iTunes track of something I have in 96kHz/24-bit ALAC from HDtracks, plus my own 48kHz/24-bit ALAC rip via XLD. I will use iTunes to rip 256kbps & 320kbps AACs from the hi-res track. I'll listen to all five on my MacBook using Amarra plugged into a Cambridge Audio Azur DacMagic 100 into my stereo system.
My impression is that unlimited is rare, and that multi-gigabyte plans are still expensive enough that few would want to fritter their allowance away on app doe wolds and updates.
Well it might be about time that they allow developers to release patches then. I do have unlimited broadband at home but downloading 2GB each time there is a few changes to Infinity Blade 3 is wearing a bit thin.
I thought they already did allow that, or was that only with their iOS updates?
That's nice. Where's my lossless music?
Edit: okay, I just bought an iTunes track of something I have in 96kHz/24-bit ALAC from HDtracks, plus my own 48kHz/24-bit ALAC rip via XLD. I will use iTunes to rip 256kbps & 320kbps AACs from the hi-res track. I'll listen to all five on my MacBook using Amarra plugged into a Cambridge Audio Azur DacMagic 100 into my stereo system.
Okay, I just tried testing the various files. There are a lot of caveats with my testing methodology since I didn't do a blind test, nor did I test multiple pieces with different types of equipment, but anyhow, here are my personal observations for one piece of music on one system.
My test track was the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony "Choral", the instrumental part before the "Ode to Joy" section, specifically the benchmark 1962 Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic recording which has been recently rereleased as a 96kHz/24-bit offering. I focused on the portion around the 3:03 mark when the cellos are pianissimo. I have several other recordings of this piece; those tracks were not used in casual test. The point is that I am very familiar with this piece.
Sample size makes a difference. 24-bits does seem to provide more dynamic range than 16-bits, but 16-bits is enough to provide a high-quality finished product (like CD audio).
Sample rate doesn't make a difference, at least at the finished product level: 44.1kHz is sufficient. Higher sample rates might be more helpful in the recording and mixing phases, like 24-bit sample sizes.
It was nearly impossible to hear any difference between my own ripped 320kbps AAC file, Apple's iTunes Store 256kbps purchased track, or even my own 256kbps variable bit-rate AAC (the "iTunes Plus" preset).
None of this matters if you are in a listening situation where your entire concentration isn't on the music, like if you are walking, driving, or working. This was a bit revealing. I would have had a nearly impossible time discerning the differences had I not been totally focused on the sound.
Conclusions:
If you are listening to standard contemporary music (rock, pop, rap, hip-hop, country, most other things on the radio), forget about hi-res audio. Either buy the songs at the iTunes Store or buy the CD and rip using the iTunes Plus preset (optimized to convert from 44.1kHz/16-bit sources). Chances are the iTunes Store files will actually be marginally better, but hey, at least you have a CD to playback.
If you are listening to classical/jazz, and you have a beloved work, go ahead and buy the hi-res track, but if you need to convert the file to play on a specific device (like an iPhone), use a common multiple for the sample rate conversion and try to avoid sample size conversion. For example, if you buy a 176.4kHz/24-bit album, you can convert to 44.1kHz/24-bit, but avoid converting to 16-bit sample size. Or just buy the used CD if it's not one of your all-time faves.
Apple's iTunes Store engineers do a pretty good job at providing a high quality, low bitrate audio file from whatever source file that the record company uploads, a better job than Joe Consumer can do with his own audio conversion software.
Don't spend lots of money on hi-res tracks. Instead, save your money for better speakers if you care about better audio, or just buy more music. An extra two hundred dollars on speakers will go a lot farther than spending the same amount on 192kHz/24-bit tracks. Alternatively, buy concert tickets for live performances with the money you didn't spend on hi-res tracks.
Notes:
I did not listen with headphones since I avoid them in general. I have a pair of Grado SR-80's, but since I rarely use them, I didn't bother here.
Equipment: MacBook Air, Cambridge Audio Azur DacMagic 100, Amarra 3.0 music software (as well as tests with iTunes and Audacity), generic Sony A/V receiver, JBL tower speakers. Alternate playback software: iTunes 12.1.x, Audacity 2.0.x. Conversion software: XLD version 20141129
I was referring to the version on the Apple OS X App Store, sorry if I got the name wrong.
This is great news. It should make porting console games a lot easier for developers.
/s
I believe that this is the non compressed limit. Some games then load extra stuff once it is installed to work around this. Either way I hope this will open the doors to more complex polished console level games...many great games out there but a long way to go to hit the quality of PC/Console game titles...
I believe that this is the non compressed limit.
It's the compressed limit. It should be around the size of your ipa file but I've found a lot of inconsistencies between how my Mac reports the size of the file and how iTunes Connect reports it once uploaded.
This may be partially my fault. I have several 2GB apps and for some time have been asking Apple to increase the app size limit. My apps are big because they contain offline map data. The 2GB limit meant I had to split the USA into four sections. The biggest problem I faced was that every time I did an update, the OpenStreetMap database I use gets bigger and more details so my app sizes increased. That meant I had to remove some data by shrinking the coverage or lose some types of data in my more recent updates. With a 4GB limit, all that data can come back but I bet some users will have difficulty downloading 3+ GB of data from the App Store. As far as I know the App Store still downloads a zipped file and then decompresses it. That means that for a 3+ GB app you would need 6 or 7 GB of free storage just to install it.
Well it might be about time that they allow developers to release patches then. I do have unlimited broadband at home but downloading 2GB each time there is a few changes to Infinity Blade 3 is wearing a bit thin.
Delta updates are supported but it's a bit of a black art. Sometimes delta updates will work, sometimes they won't. As a developer, I've yet to find exactly what causes a full app patch.
On highest quality it might but it ran on the PS3/360 originally. Recommended requirements are a desktop NVidia 660. This is around the same as the 780M in the iMac and these GPUs are roughly 3x the mobile GPUs like the 650M/750M. If Skylake comes around then the mobile GPUs should be roughly doubling in performance so it should be ok. 65GB install size though so not making its way to iOS anytime soon with a 4GB limit.
That would be one of the older ones: GTA3, Vice City or San Andreas. They have an article here saying the Mac Pro should be ok:
https://support.rockstargames.com/hc/en-us/articles/200147266-Macintosh-system-requirements-and-specifications-for-Grand-Theft-Auto-III-Vice-City-and-San-Andreas
The only one worth playing would be Vice City but the graphics in these are pretty bad by modern standards and the controls are terrible.
[VIDEO]
Some people ported it to the GTA IV engine:
[VIDEO]
It's worth it for the soundtrack:
It would probably be best in cases like that to use in-app downloads. The base app would be very small and you can even split the data by state so that when the data is updated, it's a very small update for the end user. They'd just update their content pack.
Games could use this to get around the size limits so 4GB base install for say levels 1-5 and then each subsequent 5 levels is a 4GB download. They can have a mechanism in games to delete the played levels if there's not a lot of free space.
I guess it is good that they changed the base storage of iOS devices to 32GB instead of 16GB....oh wait
-kpluck
90% of people are probably fine with 16GB. ie, my parents have had iPhones for years and have not even approached the storage limit. It seems wasteful to have a base of 32GB devices when its not need for so many.
Or 16, 128 and 256.