Apple Music To Get Improved Song Matching Algorithm

One of the criticisms of Apple Music is that it doesn’t seem to do a good job of matching songs. Sure, more often than not it gets the right song, but there have been multiple reports of users who have had entire albums swapped out for other songs due to the poor song matching algorithm used.

For example some users might have a live album that they prefer over the studio version, but because of the song matching, when paired with Apple Music, their collections have been replaced which obviously did not sit well with many. The good news is that Apple Music’s song matching algorithm has been upgraded and will be more accurate.

It seems that this algorithm isn’t exactly new per se. It has actually been used in iTunes Match where instead of matching songs by name or ID, the algorithm will now match songs based on audio fingerprints, meaning that if it detects that the song you’re listening to is the remix version or the live version, it will try to find a similar copy on Apple Music.

The new algorithm is said to be in the process of being rolled out gradually, so not all users will be able to take advantage of it right away. It is said to migrate 1-2% of the user base per day, so we reckon it’ll take a couple of weeks before all users are migrated to the new system.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Audio
Tags: Apple Music, Music