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It’s been some time since I subscribed to a music service, as I’d been self-hosting Plex at home and using PlexAmp, which I highly recommend, on my phone.

Recently, I was offered a cheap subscription to Apple Music. I had long exhausted 2-month and 3-month free offers to the point where any service that offered such a thing was rejected on my account.

I casually started to build my library, then started listening to the songs, but noticed something strange was happening at the end.

The song felt like it dropped to a lower quality, then either sped up or slowed down, queued up the next song, and transitioned to a part of the song where it could play continuously.

Initially, I thought it sounded strange, but as time has gone on, I’ve come to appreciate it. I have a wide selection of songs, and whenever I opened iTunes or Apple Music before, I’d immediately go to the music settings and put maximum “crossfade” between songs. This would blend the songs together, but when a fast song went to a slower song, it would clash.

This subtle feature is called “Automix” by Apple, and has quickly become one of my favourite features, which, as much as it pains me to say this with the backlash against AI, is powered by AI to make the transitions feel smarter. I can’t see where it’s been marketed, it was pushed as a feature with iOS 26, but prior to switching, I’d never heard of it before.

While using it, rather than just skipping before I get to the next song, I’m curious as to how the song transitions to the next one. It makes me listen to songs I wouldn’t usually stick with. Some people listen to music by albums, where the album itself takes care of the run-in to the next song, but I tend to cherry pick songs from artists into a massive playlist and have that run on shuffle, especially when I’m driving.

I’m very late to the music party, as it looks like this was introduced in September 2025, but I’m a big music listener, not at audiophile level, and this has been something I’ve come to appreciate. Maybe it’ll convince me to stay, we’ll see!