How to Use Apple Music’s Personal DJ Feature to Create Your Own Personal Radio Station

New in Apple Music, as part of iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, is a feature that Apple calls Personal DJ. This is a sort of Apple Music Radio station that is tailor-made to your musical taste.

Personal djApparently, the only way to invoke this is by asking Siri – on an iOS device or a Mac – to “Play some music,” or a similar phrase. This launches your personal radio station, whose “artwork” you’ll see as that to the left, with your photo or avatar, if you’ve added one to your profile. (Read this article to learn how to set up an Apple Music profile, and how to share your listening history.)

After you have played this once, it will show up in the Recently Played section of For You, or in the Radio section of iTunes or the iOS Music app. So you’ll be able to launch it from there.

The music played by this station seems to include the following:

  • Music you have purchased from the iTunes Store (if any).
  • Music you have added to your iCloud Music Library.
  • Music from Apple Music that you have loved.
  • Music from Apple Music that you have played.

When I’ve listened to this, it has included some music that I had added to my iCloud Music Library from Apple Music, but that I had since deleted, because I didn’t like it. So that suggests that one of the criteria is music that has been played, even just once.

Update: Over time, as Apple Music has learned my listening habits, I have found this to be one of the best ways to listen to Apple Music when I have no specific artist or album in mind. The selection is interesting, combining music I know and music that is similar to that of my tastes. My only issue with it is that I listen to music across a wide range of genres, and sometime my radio station plays only classical music, others only rock, and others only jazz. I would love to have multiple personal radio stations that play according to my listening history, but filtered by genre.