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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At last, an easy way to deal with audiobooks as a media type in 8. I have just imported an MP3 (BBC Play about Torchwood) and could flag it as an audiobook with having to convert it and use show Windows Explorer to make it an *.m4b so that iTunes thought it was an audiobook. Being able to batch update the music video, tv, audiobook is very welcome. Worth moving to 8 for these alone! No problem with my XP install.
Genius, we’ll see, with the sidebar on, it feels like the earlier MiniStore but with some value added features for your own library/ipod. I have signed up though and will give it a shot. Apple seem to have learned their privacy lesson about letting people chose to opt to in from the get go.
Posted by Will on September 10, 2008 at 2:52 PM (PDT)
42
It appears that Apple recognizes there is a problem with iTunes 8 and Vista. Supposedly, a fix is going to be released today.
Posted by Joe on September 11, 2008 at 8:56 AM (PDT)
43
I am getting so tired of them using us as guinea pigs. In order to get the fixes for their previous failures we have to install a version that also creeps in obstrusive and utterly useless features that they won’t let you turn off. Now I have a genius icon all over inside my iphone taking up space and changing my experience again.
BTW, they also snuck in all kinds of other improvements most of which are of no value but force me to relearn how to do things I’ve been doing. Needless to say, I’ll be downgrading and hoping that in future releases they give us users some options instead of trying to force feed us a bunch of fluff while leaving the real problems unaddressed. Very Microsoft of them.
Posted by Jason on September 16, 2008 at 10:13 AM (PDT)
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