Apple Music - Heavy Rotation Mix Issue
I have said it before, and I will continue to say it: I know building software is not easy; there will be bugs and issues that may crop up from time to time. Even though I am well aware of bugs, that does not mean that I do not get irritated by them from time to time. The latest issue is one that I noticed with the "Heavy Rotation Mix" within my Apple Music library.
In case you are not aware, the Heavy Rotation Mix is a playlist that, as the name indicates, has the songs that you have played a lot of within the last few days. This playlist is a slightly different one, in that it is updated every day.
The issue that I have is that there is a song that I have not listened to on the list. The specific title is "Fighting For" by Evan Honer. Why would this one be in my playlist if I never listened to it? Well, I have listened to a slightly different version of the song; that one is a duet with Hailey Whitters.
You can see in the image below the fact that the title "Fighting For" is not in my library. This is indicated by the "Add to Library" menu item in the popup.
What is even better is that it even says "Remove Download", when that particular title is not actually already downloaded.
The image below is for "girl you’re taking home" by Ella Langley, and it is in my library. This can be identified by the "Remove" menu item, which will ask to remove to either remove the download or delete from the library.
Why?
What I do not understand is how Apple can add a song that I have not listened to. Yes, the title for the two items is the same, but the song is not in my library. It would be one thing if it was a different album, or even if the album artwork was different, but this is not the issue. It is an entirely different song. The two items have different song id numbers. It is beyond me how Apple cannot be bothered to easily check to see if a song is even in a user’s library. My thought is that if the song is not in a user's library, then it should not be included in the playlist at all.
One thing that is not known, almost a year after being introduced, is whether the playlist is updated on a device and then uploaded to Apple's servers, or whether Apple generates the playlist on their servers and then updates the playlist. Regardless of how it is generated, Apple has access to the data, meaning that there is no reason it should not be able to detect items that are in a user's library.
Closing Thoughts
It is not that the version done by Evan Honer on his own is bad; it is a perfectly good song. However, I personally prefer the duet with Hailey Whitters because it puts a different spin on the song. Another example where this is also true is with the song "The Joker and the Queen" by Ed Sheeran. His version is good, but the duet with Taylor Swift makes the song even better.
Apple's music "matching" needs to actually look at the title and the artist, and whether or not it is a live version. In this case, it is not live, but a duet. Which, in my mind, means that due to the fact that there are two artists, it should never match a song with a single artist.
In the grand scheme of things, this is just a minor annoyance. Yet, this is just one of the numerous software quality issues that seem to be creeping into Apple’s software as of late.