Apple Music debuts new algorithmic Discovery Station

Apple Music users hoping for more algorithmic discovery options akin to Spotify now have a new personal radio station called Discovery Station.

Finding new music can be a challenge, especially on a service like Apple Music which hasn't caught up with Spotify's algorithmic suggestions, but a new Discovery Station may help bridge that gap. Apple doesn't add new algorithmic playlists or stations often, so the new personal radio option arrived as a surprise on Monday.

The Discovery Station appeared for users sometime early Monday, August 7, without any official announcement or popup. Users browsing the Apple Music app can see the new option under the "Listen Now" tab in the category "Stations for You."

AppleInsider found this new playlist thanks to a small change to the Personal Station that's been around for years. The artwork for the Personal Station changed from a basic red play button to an animated red arrow pointing to the right.

This curious change led us to believe something else must have been updated, and that's when we saw the Discovery Station in "Stations for You." Its artwork is the inverse of Personal Station's, with a blue color scheme and an inverted arrow animating inward.

We can only guess how it functions based on the Personal Station without any documentation or explanation of this new station. The Apple Music Personal Station appears after asking Siri to "play music that I like," and is an algorithmically built station based on play history, likes, and other factors in the Apple Music algorithm.

As its name implies, the Discovery Station appears to be an algorithmically-generated station built to play music the user hasn't heard but may like. So, it functions like the New Music Mix playlist but can play continuously.

Apple Music offers very few easy discovery options

This kind of continuous listening experience for music discovery built on an algorithm has been missing from Apple Music so far. Users could run stations based on genre, artists, or songs, but those didn't account for the user's tastes.

It seems that Siri isn't yet aware of this new radio station. At least, we haven't discovered what command is required to get it to play.

There is a direct link to the station that was discovered by MacRumors.

We will have to test this Discovery Station to determine its efficacy at finding music we're willing to add to our library. Apple may not officially announce this new station but may instead mention it in update notes in a future iOS release.

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14 Comments

mayfly 1 Year · 385 comments

About 1 year ago

Maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I don't want some algorithm telling me what "I may like" or what I want to hear next. I choose.

Ofer 8 Years · 270 comments

mayfly said:

Maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I don't want some algorithm telling me what "I may like" or what I want to hear next. I choose.

Well here’s the magic part: you don’t have to listen to that station. Amazing, right?

dewme 10 Years · 5775 comments

Thanks for pointing this out.

So far I'm finding it surprisingly good, at least within a couple of the music genres I tend to gravitate towards. I have not used it long enough to know whether it will eventually "discover" a wider swath of music that is more indicative of my total library of music outside of the genres it seems to have emphasized. I'm a little surprised Apple has not provided a way to submit feedback to rate how well the algorithm matched my preferences for a "discovered" song. I suppose Apple's algorithm already has a large enough dataset to use based on my library of about 25K songs. Providing additional validation through a feedback mechanism may not make much of a difference at this point.

The reason I emphasized "discovered" is that the algorithm seems to be weighted towards finding music that is quite similar to what you already listen to based on what's in your library. I can't tell whether it uses your play history too. I've also found that it also "discovers" music that is already in my library. This begs the question of what "discovery" means to to the algorithm and to you.

I can definitely see where I could leave this playlist running all day long and be totally comfortable with it. No problem, it sounds good and right up my alley. But it really seems to be discovering music that's very close to what I've already discovered on my own. Is this really discovery of new music or simply confirmation of what I've already latched on to? It's more along the lines of "music we think you'll like" (including music you already own - duh) than challenging you to consider discovering something that's a little more outside of your currently chosen collection of music. This latter case may be where having a feedback mechanism would allow the algorithm to gauge how far off your current path you are willing to expand your scope of music discovery.

Overall, I think it's a very nice addition to Apple Music. Even though it doesn't appear to stray too far outside your current listening comfort zone, if it only puts one or two new songs/artists in front of you every week or every month, that's still a win because it'll add more variety within the genres that you already enjoy. I've keyed in on a couple of new artists in the few hours I've been listening. This begs the question: How do I quickly flag a song on my iPhone or iPad so I can dig into other songs from the same artist? I can select "Show song in Apple Music" on my Mac, but I haven't figured how to do the same thing on other platforms.

appleinsideruser 5 Years · 663 comments

dewme said:

This begs the question: How do I quickly flag a song on my iPhone or iPad so I can dig into other songs from the same artist? I can select "Show song in Apple Music" on my Mac, but I haven't figured how to do the same thing on other platforms.

Tap Three dots, choose Show Album. From there you can get to the rest of the Artist’s material.

So far (2 minutes!) I’ve not had your positive experience. I’ve not liked the 3 things it’s pushed (from artists I know of, but don’t really like). Counter to your experience, I find the My Station, often inserts unknown stuff that I like… Go figure!

appleinsideruser said:

dewme said:

This begs the question: How do I quickly flag a song on my iPhone or iPad so I can dig into other songs from the same artist? I can select "Show song in Apple Music" on my Mac, but I haven't figured how to do the same thing on other platforms.

Tap Three dots, choose Show Album. From there you can get to the rest of the Artist’s material.

So far (2 minutes!) I’ve not had your positive experience. I’ve not liked the 3 things it’s pushed (from artists I know of, but don’t really like). Counter to your experience, I find the My Station, often inserts unknown stuff that I like… Go figure!

Thanks.

I only commented on the Discovery Station. For me it inserts unknown music that I generally like, but not in every single case, and it also inserts known music that is already in my music library, which I obviously like already. My point is that the "discovery" seems to be more geared towards reinforcing more variety into genres you already like, based on what is already in your library, as opposed to finding things that aren't as closely adjacent to what you've already committed to by virtue of what you already have in your library.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that I want Discovery Station to throw in a heavy metal track when it "thinks" I prefer, for example, traditional bluegrass. That would be pretty harsh and something I would want to "discover" all on my own. I'm more thinking along the lines of bringing in earlier or later work by an artist I already follow, or work that an artist did with another band or as a studio musician for a different artist, or in a different genre, for example, Duane Allman or Jimmy Page.