The news that Apple Music's lossless feature will not be compatible with current AirPods models has understandably caused some confusion, but there may be a way to listen to lossless music on Apple headphones in the future.

At his Front Page Tech show, leaker Jon Prosser suggested that Apple may rely on AirPlay as a way to make the new Apple Music features work on models like the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. In this case, Wi-Fi would be used instead of the usual Bluetooth connection, which cannot handle lossless audio formats.

"With a simple update, at any time, we hear that Apple is working on AirPlay to work with AirPods instead," Prosser claimed. With AirPlay, the device uses Bluetooth to detect the AirPods as a device, but once connected, it creates a personal Wi-Fi connection to stream audio between the devices. And just like that, AirPods became the first wireless headphones to stream lossless audio."

Prosser also drew parallels between Apple's Find My technology and the more recent AirTag announcement: after announcing that Find My would be compatible with third-party devices, Apple announced its own product that would further leverage it. The idea seems to be that Apple will make AirPods the best way to listen to Apple Music wirelessly.

However, while Prosser is correct in citing Bluetooth as a limiting factor when trying to play lossless music wirelessly, especially in contrast to the AirPods series, adding AirPlay connectivity may not be as simple as simply releasing a software update It may not be; connecting to Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth requires additional wireless hardware, and no unused components that would allow Wi-Fi to be used have been found so far in the teardown of the AirPods headphones.

Wi-Fi also consumes more power than Bluetooth. Therefore, unless Apple adds a way to turn off Wi-Fi, the battery life of the AirPods series will suffer.

Nevertheless, it is odd that Apple would not consider adding lossless support to the AirPods Max, which were only released late last year. Perhaps Apple could focus on ensuring that upcoming models like the AirPods 3 are fully compatible with the new Apple Music features instead of retrofitting Wi-Fi connectivity to existing headphones.