Is Apple Music lossless/uncompressed?

To state the obvious.
ALAC isn’t on par with higher bit rate FLAC files. I have some ALAC files. At same bit depth they sound just as the FLAC files do. 
What you might proffer your friend about is the interface. Apple music is easy to use. But sending files via airplay tosses out quality as that’s not as streaming. Just say no to airplay. 

My understanding is that Apple is lossless IF you're streaming Apple music directly to the source via a wired connection. In other words, you can't stream from a phone to your streaming device via airplay because Apple downsamples. If you have a tablet connected to the streamer then you can get lossless playback. 

Darko Audio has a few youtube videos that speaks to this disconnect about streaming "lossless" via Apple airplay using the phone as the controller. 

“My friend is planning on using the Lightning connection from his iPhone to an AQ Dragonfly Cobalt in case that’s important. ”

Apple Lossless SQ would be more than adequate and enjoyable in above setup. 

@lalitk 

I actually missed that last sentence in the OP.  That is an interesting way to do it and he might get a decent result.

  AirPort Express I think used to top out at CD quality.

  AirPlay isn’t that bad, pretty close to a standard redbook CD.  It’s definitely an improvement over Bluetooth although I haven’t heard the latest Bluetooth codec.  I use streaming primarily to investigate material that I don’t own and then if I really like it I buy a CD or download.  With some older recordings, especially stuff that appeared on budget Classical labels such as Vox, there really isn’t any difference between the CD and AirPlay 

It’s lossless but it’s not on par with Qobuz or Tidal and as highlighted by others it’s challenging and takes some ingenuity to get the source to your HiFi gear in a lossless format.  It’s only lossless with the source, your phone or I-Phone connected directly, hard wired, not over AirPlay.  I got excited when they announced lossless as they have a large catalog of music that rivals any service and it keeps you in the Apple Ecosystem if you have Apple products, but it’s extremely limiting when trying to implement Apple Music in your HiFi rig and it won’t quite match the top services or Amazon Music for that matter.  Their ALAC still compresses the file, unlike a FLAC file that streams in its native format.