Spotify and Apple Music have fought it out on multiple fronts down the years - sound quality, usefulness of recommendations, compatibility, etc - and it seems that the latest battleground is in-app mixing capabilities.
Both services have had simple automatic crossfading for some time, but as part of iOS 26 - coming this autumn - Apple is introducing AutoMix, a new feature that promises to “mix one song into the next, just like a DJ.” Already available to those using the iOS 26 beta, this is said to use AI to analyse the audio characteristics of songs so that it can create “unique transitions” involving both timestretching and beatmatching.
