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.

If you have ever built any sort of software, you are well aware that no software is every bug free, but it is common to try and eliminate as many bugs as possible. Apple has a large number of operating systems, including, audioOS (HomePod), iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS, watchOS, and even tvOS.

Over the last 15 years Apple has made tremendous strides in eliminating the larger bugs, like crashing devices, kernel panics, and even app crashes. That is not to say that they cannot happen, of course they can, but their frequency is significantly less than in previous years. However, it seems like there are still some operating systems that do not get nearly as much attention.

One of the areas where I see a number of a bugs is with tvOS. My "favorite" bug occurs within the Library section. There are actually two issues.

Not Always Showing Group

The first issue that I have is that sometimes when switching to eithe the "Movies" or "TV Show" tab, the actual data might not change to show the proper data. The selected group changes, but the actual data does not.

This is easily fixable by just choosing another item and then going back. This is not an issue, since there is a fix, but it is still irritating when you want to watch something.

Incorrect Movie Posters

The more annoying bug that I have is with movie posters that are shown. As an example, I have a movie called "Tomorrow When the War Began". The actual poster that is shown is in Spanish, even though I do not own the Spanish version. What is more irritating is that this has happened on several titles previously, but this is the current one.

The more egregious example though, is for the movie "Whiteout". The movie poster for this is COMPLETELY wrong. It shows the movie poster for "Dracula III: Legacy". There is no reason why this should be the case. I am sure this is a caching issue, but the strange part is that it does not happen on all devices.

On my iPhone, it is the right movie poster, the same on my iPad. However, on my MacBook Pro, Apple TV 4K, MacBook Pro, and Mac Studio, it is in the correct movie poster. Even on Apple's "Marketing Tools" site, it shows the incorrect movie poster.

Unfortunately, there is no way for me to fix the caching issues. I have reported it to Apple using their Feedback mechanism (FB16415600), but I will likely never hear back.

Closing Thoughts

While Apple has significantly improved the underlying software, they still have a long way to go with their operating systems that are not that important, like Apple TV. I get that there is only so much time that Apple is willing to spend on a platform that is ancillary, but it would be nice to see it actually get some attention.