Digital volume controls

[syganymede]

I am fairly familiar with digital volume controls.

 

On the one hand they just shift the bits right, cutting off the lower ones. Then again some shift right then dither the LSB. Am I right?

 

My question is how does Mac/iTunes handle this versus iPad/iPod app?

 

For me the Mac iTunes volume control sounds much better than that on the iPad when not at max.

 

Is it that on the Mac we have more processing power and 32it Core Audio, but on the iPad we don't have suh powerful CPU's?