Are the music apps going to improve?

[teartags]

I use TuneIn primarily and the app is pretty lousy. It has very few settings, doesn't automatically start playing again when interrupted by phone, etc and lately (update) has been dropping out excessively.
Spotify performs slightly better, but lacks SO many features. It's downright dangerous to try to do anything but let it run through a playlist whilst driving.
I'm an anti-Apple guy, so I don't use Apple Music, but from all the reports here it sounds like that app is terrible.
I don't mind paying the upcoming $15/ month charge for data, but if it's to use these terribly implemented apps, I'll likely just decline out of principle and suffer through the crappy sound of bluetooth through my phone.

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[beatle]

I hope so, but I wouldn't expect much beyond slight reliability improvements. They are likely stacking their board to add as many features as possible during the Connect+ trial to entice people to convert their trials to subscriptions. I think some people might just disagree on what a minimum viable product is though.

 

[Mathme]

Are the music apps going to improve?

We
Can
Only
Hope

I get that Rivian wants to own the entire SW stack, but one would think that getting music integration would be a fairly easy task.

 

[RedRaiderRivian]

Are the music apps going to improve?

We
Can
Only
Hope

I get that Rivian wants to own the entire SW stack, but one would think that getting music integration would be a fairly easy task.

Am I the only person using Amazon Music. It has gotten much better over the last three software updates and is pretty stable now. I really like being able to ask Alexa to play a random playlist (80s country road trip) and it plays a few hours of good tunes. Now that Dolby Atmos is supported I look forward to trips.

 

[godfodder0901]

Am I the only person using Amazon Music. It has gotten much better over the last three software updates and is pretty stable now. I really like being able to ask Alexa to play a random playlist (80s country road trip) and it plays a few hours of good tunes. Now that Dolby Atmos is supported I look forward to trips.

Atmos is not supported for Amazon Music yet.

 

[RedRaiderRivian]

Atmos is not supported for Amazon Music yet.

Are you saying in the truck or in the Amazon Music app? I have a whole playlist in the app on my phone that is Dolby Atmos. I tested using the bluetooth connection to my R1T and the app shows the R1T accepting Dolby Atmos content. I can hear the difference in sound quality after the last software update.

 

[godfodder0901]

Are you saying in the truck or in the Amazon Music app? I have a whole playlist in the app on my phone that is Dolby Atmos. I tested using the bluetooth connection to my R1T and the app shows the R1T accepting Dolby Atmos content. I can hear the difference in sound quality after the last software update.

In the truck for anything other than Apple Music. And likely on your phone as well since very few phones support actual lossless and spatial audio. And there is now way Atmos content is streamed over Bluetooth. Not enough bandwidth or codec support. The perceived quality gains were likely a figment based on the volume increase on the. 31 build.

 

[electruck]

Am I the only person using Amazon Music. It has gotten much better over the last three software updates and is pretty stable now. I really like being able to ask Alexa to play a random playlist (80s country road trip) and it plays a few hours of good tunes. Now that Dolby Atmos is supported I look forward to trips.

Nope! I just get in the car and ask DJ Alexa to "Play my music". Occasionally, it's nice to ask her to play specific songs but 99.9% of the time I just let her be the DJ. It's like a radio station playing all my favorite songs with some related content mixed in to spice things up. If I'm not in the mood for a song, I just skip to the next. I despise managing playlists so this suits me perfectly.

 

[NY_Rob]

The Rivian Tunein app is just barely functional.
It never displays the name of the track that's actually playing no less display it's cover art. It sometimes skips to the next song right in the middle of playing the current song, and speaking of the current song, while playing, it sometimes repeats part of the current song (more than once). And, wtf is the deal when you hit the > icon on the miniplayer? In every player I've ever used ">" indicates next track and "<" skips to the previous track. In the Rivian mini player ">" goes to the next channel in your Favorites???

 

[RedRaiderRivian]

In the truck for anything other than Apple Music. And likely on your phone as well since very few phones support actual lossless and spatial audio. And there is now way Atmos content is streamed over Bluetooth. Not enough bandwidth or codec support. The perceived quality gains were likely a figment based on the volume increase on the. 31 build.

I just checked on my truck with the 35 update and there is a definite improvement in sound quality streaming Dolby Atmos over bluetooth vs stereo streaming. Its directly selectable in the Amazon Music app. I also played the same song using the native Alexa app and it sounds like Dolby Atmos. Where did you read that only Apple Music supports Dolby Atmos? Definitely not a figment as I have always kept my music around level 3 even prior to the 31 update. I wear earplugs in church because the music is too loud.
BTW, read this article from Dolby on how earbuds and headphones can stream Atmos. Dolby Atmos

Edited: According to the Owner's guide, Audible supports Dolby Atmos.

 

[Sundar]

Am I the only person using Amazon Music. It has gotten much better over the last three software updates and is pretty stable now. I really like being able to ask Alexa to play a random playlist (80s country road trip) and it plays a few hours of good tunes. Now that Dolby Atmos is supported I look forward to trips.

afaik Atmos over Bluetooth is only supported by some headphones. Atmos requires specific integrated hardware/software on the amplifier that tightly controlled/regulated by Dolby. I don’t think Dolby has licensed or plans to license the tech used for Bluetooth decoding for any Bluetooth amplifers outside of those integrated into headphones. Most standalone or speaker integrated wireless amps that have atmos decoding are getting a data stream directly via their own wifi connection, Wi-Fi Direct from another device on the network, or via a high bandwidth audio connection like hdmi. I’m honestly not sure what kind of compression wizardry Dolby uses to get it to work on Bluetooth - but I assume it’s mixed and compressed for the target device before it’s transmitted and then additional processing is run on the headphones.

tl;dr: very unlikely we’ll see atmos over Bluetooth on anything other than headphones. The source may be atmos but it’s getting down mixed to PCM 5.1 before getting transmitted over Bluetooth to traditional speaker driving amps.

 

[RedRaiderRivian]

afaik Atmos over Bluetooth is only supported by some headphones. Atmos requires specific integrated hardware/software on the amplifier that tightly controlled/regulated by Dolby. I don’t think Dolby has licensed or plans to license the tech used for Bluetooth decoding for any Bluetooth amplifers outside of those integrated into headphones. Most standalone or speaker integrated wireless amps that have atmos decoding are getting a data stream directly via their own wifi connection, Wi-Fi Direct from another device on the network, or via a high bandwidth audio connection like hdmi. I’m honestly not sure what kind of compression wizardry Dolby uses to get it to work on Bluetooth - but I assume it’s mixed and compressed for the target device before it’s transmitted and then additional processing is run on the headphones.

tl;dr: very unlikely we’ll see atmos over Bluetooth on anything other than headphones. The source may be atmos but it’s getting down mixed to PCM 5.1 before getting transmitted over Bluetooth to traditional speaker driving amps.

I would have thought the same until I saw this Dolby Atmos Compatible Devices which includes Air Pods Pro and 3rd gen Airpods.

 

[godfodder0901]

I just checked on my truck with the 35 update and there is a definite improvement in sound quality streaming Dolby Atmos over bluetooth vs stereo streaming. Its directly selectable in the Amazon Music app. I also played the same song using the native Alexa app and it sounds like Dolby Atmos. Where did you read that only Apple Music supports Dolby Atmos? Definitely not a figment as I have always kept my music around level 3 even prior to the 31 update. I wear earplugs in church because the music is too loud.
BTW, read this article from Dolby on how earbuds and headphones can stream Atmos. Dolby Atmos

Edited: According to the Owner's guide, Audible supports Dolby Atmos.

That 'Atmos' is purely marketing garbage. It is Atmos in the same way that 2.0 channel Dolby Digital is Dolby Surround...
Atmos for headphones is not object based, multichannel, or lossless like real Atmos TrueHD.

As for Audible, you are right. It also supports Atmos.

 

[RedRaiderRivian]

That 'Atmos' is purely marketing garbage. It is Atmos in the same way that 2.0 channel Dolby Digital is Dolby Surround...
Atmos for headphones is not object based, multichannel, or lossless like real Atmos TrueHD.

As for Audible, you are right. It also supports Atmos.

That pretty much my take on all of Apple's products. Pure marketing garbage. Thanks for confirming.

 

[runwithscissors]

Why can't these apps be updated outside of a full vehicle update? Waiting a month between "app" updates is insane.

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