News
Apple releases iTunes 8 with Genius auto-playlists
By Charles Starrett
Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Tuesday, September 9, 2008
News Category: iTunes
Apple today released iTunes 8, the latest update to its digital media management application featuring support for HD TV shows in the iTunes Store and a new Genius feature which automatically makes playlists from songs in the user’s library. When a song is selected, a new Genius button in the bottom right corner will create a new playlist. Apple-developed Genius Algorithms communicate with the iTunes Store, taking info about your library and sending it anonymously to Apple to let them learn about your tastes. A new grid view displays media by cover art, with a bar at the top to choose between albums, artists, genres, composers, and a slider to adjust the size of the art. This view also works with TV shows, movies, podcasts. iTunes 8 is a free download for both Mac and Windows users and is available now from itunes.com.
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21
Anyone who’s updated to iTunes 8: Have they fixed the App Store so that you can get app updates?
Posted by Just for Quix on September 9, 2008 at 7:53 PM (PDT)
22
Holy cr&p;, where is the button under “advanced” that lets you change the bit rate when copying CDs?!
Posted by binkie on September 9, 2008 at 8:16 PM (PDT)
23
Does anyone else’s ITunes 8 chirp when you switch between ITunes Store window and Music window? This is starting to bug me and I can’t find a way to disable this.
Posted by lmunoz13 on September 9, 2008 at 8:42 PM (PDT)
24
The Import Settings button is now on the General tab of Preferences.
Show Duplicates is now on File menu.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Posted by djherc on September 9, 2008 at 8:42 PM (PDT)
25
Found the Backup To Disc function - it’s under File>Library
Posted by djherc on September 9, 2008 at 8:44 PM (PDT)
26
Oh My Freakin GOD ! Finally… I can now batch change an entire season, TV series, or groups of TV Series to TV Shows. Or I can change all my Music Vids to well, Music Vids.
No more changing one at a time. I have been waiting for ages for this !
This was also the easiest to upgrade to as well. My only issue would be with the size of my library and the Genius function. I have had to restart my laptop twice due to windows updates - and each time I restart iTunes, I have to agree to the T&Cs;, login with my account etc. The whole process has taken approx 5 hours or so, and I am still only at step 1.
I have over 50,000 songs and over 2500 movies or TV episodes.
Lucky with the restarts, iTunes remember where I was up to, so it’s not like I have had to restart the whole process over again.
Posted by Peter on September 9, 2008 at 9:34 PM (PDT)
27
the first comment posted mentions being able to half rate songs, any truth to this? is there something i need to turn on to get this working or is that just wishful thinking?
Posted by jarrett on September 9, 2008 at 10:00 PM (PDT)
28
The batch (Multiple Item) tagging and sorting features are very welcome indeed.
Wonder what other features we haven’t found yet?
The grid view is growing on me as well - my late, lamented MusicMatch had a similar view.
Posted by djherc on September 9, 2008 at 10:01 PM (PDT)
29
One of the blogger websites doing a simulcast blog, called the Genius function ‘just like Pandora’. I’ve been using Pandora since the first day it was released, and Genius is more accurately comparable to Audioscrobbling / Scrobbling of Last.fm.
Regarding arrows only pointing to iTunes music store, and inability to disable: The only workaround is an old one: Within Onyx, there is the option: Parameters>Misc>“Point the link arrows of iTunes on Library”. This means all the arrows within iTunes only point to within your own iTunes library, and activates the Browser view if you wish
Posted by MilMascaras on September 9, 2008 at 10:16 PM (PDT)
30
I downloaded it and it deleted tons of my artwork, thank god for the get album artwork thing.
Posted by Bottger on September 9, 2008 at 10:28 PM (PDT)
31
Still doesn’t let me organize my Classical music properly? Seriously, does anyone know of non-Apple alternatives that are made for people with the slightest appreciation for Classical music? It’ll be a pain to transfer all my music, but it’d be worth it.
Posted by ate on September 9, 2008 at 10:46 PM (PDT)
32
Show Current Song is now under View, which brings up a screen showing the bands name at the top, album artwork, play count, rating, and last played. There is also a tab to bring up All Artists, which takes you back to the grid view.
So far I like it, but it will take some getting used to. Now I need to save some $$$ for the new iPod Touch!
Posted by Michael on September 9, 2008 at 11:20 PM (PDT)
33
So, Still can’t install it on my PC (Vista Home Premium 64-bit) and when I tried it messed up my old iTunes install as well. It keeps saying “installer encountered errors and can’t continue” or something like that, when it is at the point of copying files, any suggestions?
Posted by Instynx on September 10, 2008 at 12:59 AM (PDT)
34
Still no luck with iTunes 8. My message when I try to install says the Apple Mobile Device could not be installed and to verify that I have sufficient privileges to install system services. This happens every time I try to install iTunes 8 on my Vista pc. When I click on Retry, the program finishes installing “successfully”, but still crashes to the blue screen when I try to plug my iPhone in. Any suggestions?
Posted by Annie on September 10, 2008 at 5:19 AM (PDT)
35
I installed iTunes 8 on my XP machine and im having trouble with two things.
1. i’ve attempted to turn on the genuis feature and no such luck get a screean saying request could not be completed, date and time are incorrect. did the apple troubleshoot still no success. anyone else run into this problem.
2. Where did the burning tab go?
Posted by Matt on September 10, 2008 at 7:05 AM (PDT)
36
8 works fine for me. The Genius option is interesting. Glad to see they incorporated what so many other plug-ins were doing for so long. I can’t seem to find any “Genius Preferences” though. I’d like to be able to create a playlist without having it duplicate artists.
Posted by DevonS31 on September 10, 2008 at 10:16 AM (PDT)
37
downloaded 8.0 and it made my computer crash, had to use auto recover to get my computer back and running. think i’m gonna wait a while til all the bugs are worked out.
Posted by jarrett on September 10, 2008 at 11:13 AM (PDT)
38
Downloaded 8 and no issues/problems. I like the new View and the Genius feature is a nice way to make a quick playlist for the day/drive. It seems to pull the more popular options, but I suspect it will dig deeper as it compiles more date over time.
Posted by Jeff on September 10, 2008 at 11:23 AM (PDT)
39
Matt -
The “Burning tab” doesn’t appear until you click on the Burn button below your playlist. No new features on it, they just moved it.
DevonS31-
It will be interesting to see how the Genius functionality evolves as more users submit their info and suggestions. I, too, would like it to not duplicate artist within the Genius playlists.
Posted by djherc on September 10, 2008 at 11:32 AM (PDT)
40
I’m having the same problems as Annie and jarrett. Everytime I connect the iPhone to my computer I get the blue screen of death. I can’t find anything about this on the Apple web site.
Posted by Joe on September 10, 2008 at 1:18 PM (PDT)
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