Microsoft's planning a major release for Windows 10 at the end of the year which should include support for AAC audio through Bluetooth.
For the
uninitiated, AAC or Advanced Audio Codec is important for "lossless"
audio streaming to Apple's headphones and will also benefit iTunes and Apple
Music playback on Windows.
Typically,
Windows 10 supports a handful of industry-standard audio codecs like AptX but
still doesn't quite cover all the popular ones. Apple, meanwhile, has supported
Advanced Audio Coding for sometime now as a high-quality lossy codec for
streaming audio wirelessly. Naturally, that has prompted other services and
audio device makers to also support the codec.
As per a report by The Verge,
on top of AAC support, Microsoft will also better how Windows handles Bluetooth
inputs. As of now, Windows will show multiple devices for different Bluetooth profiles
— for example, with the Surface Headphones connected to a Windows 10 device,
you might see them in the audio menu labelled as ‘Headset’ and ‘Headphones’
depending on whether you want to take a call or listen to music.
Having both
options there can be confusing both for users and for apps, which may view
connected Bluetooth headphones or speakers as multiple different devices. With
the upcoming update, Windows will use a single audio endpoint to automatically
switch to the right Bluetooth profiles based on what you’re doing.
These changes
are definitely a step in the right direction, but there’s still more Microsoft
could do to improve audio on Windows. Along with the audio improvements, it’s
set to fix an issue with Windows rearranging apps on multiple monitors, bring
the Xbox Auto HDR feature to PC games, new File Explorer icons and more.
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