Spatial Audio, head tracking, and Apple TV

Engadet (via MacRumors):

Whether you’re using a pair of AirPods Pro or AirPods Max, the software that powers the feature will widen the soundstage so that it seems like the entire room you’re in is being filled with sound.

Looking forward to experience this on a regular basis. It’ll be interesting to see if shared audio can keep up with two people, if we’re each wearing AirPods, one of us walking around.

When you sit down to watch a movie or TV show, the included head tracking feature will lock in after it detects you’ve been looking in the same direction for a while. Once you get up to walk around, it will reactivate.

Cool, and good to know how the head position reset works.

Connecting your AirPods to an Apple TV is also easy in this context. When you’re near the device with your headphones, it will display a popup that will allow you to quickly connect, and you won’t need to dig into the settings menu.

Yes please. I think Spatial Audio was a particularly clever idea. From the Surround Sound Wikipedia page:

Edgar Varese’s Poème électronique, created for the Iannis Xenakis-designed Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, also used spatial audio with 425 loudspeakers used to move sound throughout the pavilion.

63 years later, and that massive sound stage is in your tiny AirPods!