Apple Music’s Daily “Heavy Rotation Mix” Rounds up Your Most Popular Songs
Apple Music’s strength is its curated editorial playlists, but over the past year the service has continually improved its algorithmic playlists . This continues with the launch of a new playlist feature called Heavy Rotation Mix. This self-updating playlist takes into account the songs you’ve listened to most recently. (Apple’s description reads: “The tracks you’ve been missing lately, all in one place.”)
Apple Music will update your Heavy Rotation Mix every day. The playlist will include your top 25 songs from your recent listening history. This may lead to some surprises: I was puzzled to find a lot of cat-themed songs by The Kiffness in my Heavy Rotation Mix. Then I remembered that I now only use Apple Music when I run, and during runs I have a habit of constantly playing the Cat Jams EP.
Heavy Rotation Mix collects your music listening history from all devices connected to your Apple Music account, so if your kids hacked your iPad or HomePod to listen to an artist online, expect that to show up in your Heavy Rotation Mix.
This new playlist is different from your Favorites Mix playlist in Apple Music. The favorites mix is updated once a week and seems to pick your best songs over a longer listening period. In my case, the “Favorites Mix” contains songs that I’ve played a lot over the last year, and the “Heavy Rotation Mix” contains my best songs from the last month or so.
The new playlist is a solid addition to Apple Music’s algorithmic mixes, most of which appear in the app’s Made for You section. To find them all, open the Apple Music app and go to the Listen Now tab. If you scroll down, you will see the Made for You section, which contains the following playlists:
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Heavy rotation mix
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Favorites Mix
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Get up! Mixing
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Cold mix
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New music mix
Editorial and algorithmic playlists
The difference between an editorial playlist and an algorithmic playlist is simple: the editorial playlist is the same for everyone who uses Apple Music, while the algorithmic ones are personalized to your tastes. Your Heavy Rotation Mix will be unlike any other, unless of course you have a significant other who listens to the same songs as you, with the same frequency (if so: weird). If you don’t like Apple’s algorithmic playlists, here’s how you can create your own self-updating smart playlists in Apple Music .