Apple’s AirPods Max Lossless Update Actually Works Now

Something funny happened this week. After a firmware release initially set to go public on Monday, a release that would bring lossless audio and ultra-low latency support to Apple’s AirPods Max, owners of the pricey headphones spent Monday and Tuesday facepalming over the fact that it wasn’t working.

Eagle-eyed folks, such as those over at The Verge, noticed that Apple had put up “an unusual, ‘coming soon’ asterisk next to the AirPods Max on a support site that lists each device’s latest firmware” late on Tuesday, after the firmware update was supposed to already be live.

Apple made no big announcement over the delay, just as it’s made no big announcement of its fix, but it finally seems to be working.

a curious delay

Firmware version 7E99, which would deliver support for the lossless audio format to the AirPods Max, was supposed to arrive on March 31 when iOS 18.4 and macOS Sequoia 15.4 were out of beta and released to the public.

For an undisclosed reason, Apple bumped back support for lossless and ultra-low latency at the last moment. Apple had made quite a lot of noise about the tardy arrival of lossless audio on its flagship headphones since the week prior, so perhaps it was just a wee bit too embarrassed to publicize the glitch that much.

For now, at least, it’s just the AirPods Max that will be able to play up to 24-bit, 48 kHz lossless audio, although there’s a catch: You have to tether them via a USB-C cable to enable lossless audio listening. Lossless still won’t be available when using them wirelessly.

Apple Music, Tidal, and Deezer offer hi-fidelity, lossless tiers, and Spotify is rumored to be finally launching theirs this year. If you want to take advantage of the AirPods Max, get yourself a subscription to one of them and fish out that USB-C cable. Oh, and make sure you’ve downloaded firmware 7E99. This time for real.