The current Wiim Ultra will never get Apple AirPlay

Last week, I discovered a surprising fact about Wiim’s new flagship network music player, the $329 touchscreen-equipped Ultra: Unlike all of Wiim’s products to-date, it lacks Apple AirPlay certification. However, there was reason to believe that the streamer could be made AirPlay compatible via a future firmware update once the company finalized the certification process. Today, however, those hopes have been dashed. The current version of the Wiim Ultra hardware will never support Apple’s wireless audio streaming feature.

“The current WiiM Ultra does not support AirPlay,” a company representative told me via email, “and it cannot be made available via an OTA software update.”

That news will not be appreciated by those who have already ordered the Ultra under the assumption it would have AirPlay — an assumption that was broadly shared by me and my industry colleagues when we reported on the device’s official launch. Even some retailers taking orders for the Wiim Ultra have AirPlay listed as a feature.

The inability to add AirPlay via a firmware update apparently surprised Wiim itself. “At its launch at the High-End Munich Show, this wasn’t the belief at WiiM but internal issues changed the situation unfortunately.”

Ironically, the fine print on Amazon’s Buy at Amazon has proven to be the most accurate of all: “NOTE: This device is incompatible with AirPlay and cannot function as an AirPlay receiver.”

Wiim hasn’t provided any details around why the Ultra can’t be made compatible with AirPlay. Instead, the company is simply encouraging its customers to use alternatives: “We understand this may be disappointing for our users who primarily use AirPlay. However, users can still stream audio to WiiM Ultra and connect via Bluetooth. They can also enjoy continued support for Chromecast Audio, Alexa Casting, Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, Qobuz, Amazon Music, Deezer, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and more.”

So how big of a deal is the lack of AirPlay? When I first broke this news, I said that it might create a critical issue for Apple fans: Since Wiim’s software doesn’t support Apple Music natively, and since the Apple Music app on iOS isn’t compatible with Google Cast (formerly Chromecast Audio), there is no way for iPhone users to stream Apple Music to the Wiim Ultra losslessly at CD quality without the use of AirPlay. But I was wrong.

It turns out, lossless streaming of Apple Music to the Wiim Ultra might be impossible for iPhone users. Thanks to some keen sleuthing by John Darko and friends, it turns out that in specific scenarios (with Apple Music on the iPhone being one of them), AirPlay doesn’t do lossless at all. I’ve since confirmed this using the Wiim Pro Plus.

When you AirPlay a supposedly lossless audio track from Apple Music on an iPhone to the Pro Plus, that device reports that it’s receiving a 256 kbps bitrate — far below the bitrate you’d need to do lossless CD quality even when compressed.

In terms of audio quality, there’s almost no difference for iPhone-based Apple Music listeners between AirPlay and Bluetooth, given that the Ultra the same AAC codec that AirPlay is reportedly using in this situation. The one thing AirPlay can still boast is that playback won’t be interrupted by things like phone calls or other system sounds and alerts, which can and does happen when using Bluetooth.

Apparently, the same thing is true when AirPlaying Tidal from an iPhone. With the audio quality benefit of AirPlay negated for these folks, we’re left with AirPlay’s multiroom capability and Apple HomeKit support, which gives you Siri-based voice control.

Even that might not be such a big deal. Once you stream Bluetooth to the Ultra, you can group that device with any other Wiim devices in your house.

Nonetheless, if you bought or ordered a Wiim Ultra in part because you thought it would have AirPlay, you may now be thinking about a refund. Wiim says that refunds are available if you bought through Amazon, but that each retailer will have its own policies.