I’m pretty sure I heard Steve Jobs said that. “Genius gets smarter”. Of course he was referring to the new function in iTunes 8. And after using it once, I must admit, it’s pretty cool. no…. It’s way cool! There are 2 things 1 must know about genius.

Genius Playlists
Meet Genius: a brilliant way to create perfect playlists. Play a song, click the Genius button, and iTunes creates a playlist of other songs from your library that go great together. Genius playlists help you discover songs in your library you never knew you had — and rediscover forgotten favorites.

Genius Sidebar
While you reacquaint yourself with the music you already own, let Genius introduce you to new music you’ll love. As you select songs in your library, the Genius sidebar displays songs from the iTunes Store that go great with it. The Genius sidebar won’t recommend songs already in your library, and you can preview and buy recommended songs directly from the sidebar.

How genius playlists work is currently beyond me. Does it go by genre keywords or certain beats in the music? I would hate to think that it’s all random. ^^. After all, we already have a function called “Party Shuffle” which does that pretty well. Actually, I think this genius playlist might replace party shuffle. Think about it. If you want a lively party, pick a lively song and let genius fill up the playlist for you. Isn’t that great or what.

Ok. That aside, the genius sidebar is also another welcome addition. Although I think it’s more of an advertisement in iTunes. However, first impression… although I “know” that it’s an advertisement always tempting me to buy new music, I don’t find it in the way at all, unlike webpages with Google ads all over the place. Because I don’t find it in the way, I do find Apple’s implementation pretty good. Maybe even effective. Click on the note in the genius sidebar and you can hear a sample of the song. If you like it, just click buy. I occasionally buy music, but when I do, most of it I buy on iTunes. This genius sidebar might save me some time browsing the iTunes store. Although there’s nothing like browsing the store once in a while to get the free single of the week or to discover music because of the attractive album art. ^^.

iTunes 8. Like it so far. The new visualizer is pretty cool too. Oh. In other news, I heard Estelle’s album is back in iTunes. Gotta give record label warner a thumbs down for no giving us a choice. Forcing consumers to buy the whole album. I don’t think so. ^^. Give us an incentive, like bonus tracks that come with the album purchase or something. Anyway, ranting too much already.

One last thing… I know the font’s kinda small, but how do you think genius did putting a playlist together based on the song “A Million Ways” by OK Go? You might remember them. Those guys dancing in the backyard.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under apple, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.