Integration of Amazon Music High Resolution

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you would know that Apple do EVERYTHING through their app store(s). So how would that work with Roon, who would be the ONLY outside portal for Apple in their history. It doesn’t matter how much wining and dining Roon do, it just isn’t going to happen! Have you not been following the Epic/Apple court case? I’ll bet that devs at Roon know a lot more about Apple integration than any forum wishful thinkers think they do.

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You’re over exaggerating how much Apple locks things. Example, you can play Apple Music through Sonos: 3 Simple Ways to Play Apple Music on Sonos [2021]

It’s not as if Apple is not open to the idea of other players being able to play AppleMusic.

Judging by the number of issues reported by the Apple users, you may loose that bet! :innocent:

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Yes, there will always be exceptions. Sonos is a major hardware player - much different than being a niche software provider. For companies like Sonos and Apple, it’s a symbiotic hardware/software coupling that can benefit both. I just don’t see that happening with Roon, who could be seen by Apple as a software competitor.

That has nothing to do what we’re talking about here.

Two points:

  1. The number of Sonos users out there is several magnitudes more than the equivalent number of Roon users - close to 10 million as opposed to around 250k Roon subscribers.

  2. Sonos does not require anything like the amount of metadata that Roon would require in order to integrate with Apple Music to provide a service of the sort it provides with Tidal and/or Qobuz. Neither does Sonos offer the comprehensive metadata driven functionality that Roon exists to provide.

Right, which is why we need to keep on pushing Roon for them to do more outreach.

One other thing to consider is Apple TV+ – the service is integrated all over the place (all new Smart TV’s, streaming boxes (Roku, Google TV, Amazon Fire TV)), game consoles (Xbox, Playstation). Once it fits their strategic needs, Apple can integrate with the best of them.

Yes, but Apple TV has original content they want to push. Thing is, each streaming video provider has mostly different content so it behooves them to reach as far and wide as possible and bring in more subscribers. Music streaming providers, for the most part, all carry the same content, which is why the same household that subs to three or more different video providers might only sub to one music provider. So the biggest difference/selling point becomes the music streamers own ecosystem, which some would be loathe to open up as then people wouldn’t have to go direct to it for their needs.

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You can’t pitch if the batter isn’t interested in playing ball!

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Pardon my interruption!

No worries - my point is that writing software to run on a MAC OS or iOS versus integrating ones’s software with Apple’s servers via an API are two entirely different thing.

That’s not necessarily integration though is it? it’s factoring their apps to work on different hardware. Very different from letting 3rd parties have access via their own apps.

Although we cannot realistically hope that Amazon Music might one day be in integrated in ROON, it might be interesting to note that Amazon sends messages to inform, that the extra costs for High Resolution will be cancelled:

Dear …,

This is a notification about your Amazon Music membership. Effective immediately, there is no extra charge for HD as part of your Amazon Music membership.

You will still have full access to your HD content, but at no additional cost. This change will become active with the next billing cycle.

Please click here to learn more.

Thank you,
Amazon Music Team
(DEEPL Translation)

I’m wondering if the HD sub numbers were low (for Amazon) so they just decided it wasn’t worth the hassle or customer confusion so may as well roll it into one?

True – just pointing out that when it fits their services agenda, Apple is not as tied to its own eco system as it was before. Though I have a hard time imagining where Roon would fit…

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I suppose the only way that Roon could fit in is via things such as Airplay and Spotify Connect. I presume that this would still allow multiple endpoints and DSP, but obviously wouldn’t allow for the deep integration that is, at present, seen by Roon as a vital constituent of its provision.

Similar move by Apple Music, see Apple Music announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio - Apple (AE)

No extra costs as well for HighRes from Apple Music!

Now we can start a new thread “Integration of Apple Music High Resolution”, again presumably with no or only minor realistic chance that Apple Music might be integrated into ROON one day!

But, you have that right now with a ton of other options. Roon’s “integration” at that level would be no different than any of the other already existing options.

The Roon as you are used to using it would not be the same, at all. There would be no integration with the rest of your library, for example. No Unified search, No Unified Views. Each Service in its own little silo.

Look at the just released Audrivana and see what happens in that software.