A year on from the launch of Apple Music, we’re finally seeing improvements to the song-matching feature which has come under fire for its inaccuracy.
One of the selling points of Apple Music is its ability to match songs from your personal music library – that is to say, music you’ve paid for through iTunes or ripped from a CD – and allow you access to those tracks from anywhere. It’s a great idea that allows users to listen to artists that aren’t part of Apple Music’s streaming library, or to play B-sides and alternate versions of songs.
This functionality is based on a separate service Apple has run for several years now called iTunes Match. However, Apple Music’s matching tool doesn’t use the same framework, and users have complained that it’s less accurate as a result. Until now Apple Music used a song’s metadata to match your local tracks with those on its servers, often resulting in mismatches. The wrong version of a song could be played – for example, the studio version instead of a specific live track – with no recourse to find the one the user really wanted.
Anyway, for users who have experienced this problem, or been put off using Apple Music because of its lackluster matching – fear not, a fix is on the way. Apple is said to be releasing an update that uses the “audio fingerprint” from iTunes Match itself to improve the accuracy. Why it wasn’t using that to begin with, we have no idea. But it’s a sign the service is heading in the right direction, along with the complete Apple Music redesign due with iOS 10.
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