One of the new features of iTunes 8 is Genius, a preposterously named playlist creator that seems, to me, completely overhyped. What does it do, really? Apple’s highly detailed instructions (above) say all you have to do is play a song, click the Genius button, then off you go. It scans your iTunes library for songs that “go great together,” then creates a playlist of those songs. Wonderful.
Nearest I can tell, all Genius is doing is going through my library and picking a bunch of songs of the same genre or artist, then grouping them together. How is that different from a smart playlist set up to select 25 hip-hop or classic rock (or whatever) songs?
Like, check this out. I tell Genius to make a playlist based on “Energy Bomb (Alex Gold, Adam K & Soha Mix)” by Alex Gold, a progressive house song (you can listen to it here, if you dare!). What does Genius do? It makes a playlist of a bunch of progressive house songs. (That’s when it doesn’t throw me a bunch of error messages.) Wow, thanks. I couldn’t have done that on my own.
In my estimation, Genius is a wildly over-hyped smart playlist generator. Thank you.
Haha I spy Deadmau5. He was pretty awesome in Ann Arbor, MI last week. (Use Beatport much?)
And yes. I haven’t downloaded iT8, but the concept of a ‘Genius’ button for playlists sounds ridiculous.
Indeed, Beatport is where it’s at.
I’m starting to think that Apple’s monopoly on “cool” or “hip” is about to run out. When the biggest feature of its new nano is that it’s available in a bunch of different colors, you know the well is about to go dry.
You’re absolutely right. I’m sick of Apple’s pretentious attitude about everything. They’ve got their “geniuses” at the Apple store, and now they’re naming software functions the same thing (software, by the way, which is decidedly NOT innovative).
If you want something that is going to match up your music interests, use Pandora. But matching songs in a library you already created isn’t doing a whole lot, even if it is doing it by genre.
Nope, doesn’t do that for me.
I click a song and the results come from a variety of different genres.
For Example, I click on ‘Sexx Laws’ by Beck, which I have listed as Alt Pop, and the results coming back include artists such as Iggy Pop, Pixies, The Go! Team, The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, and more, with tracks listed in the genres 60s, Alt Country, College Rock, Alternative, Indie Pop, Garage Rock, New Wave, Glam and others.
So no, I’m afraid that I can’t agree that it’s just an over-hyped smart playlist.
I agree (somewhat) with your article. However, one of the reasons that iTunes has to “upload” your information to the iTunes cloud, it’s so that Apple gets the data of all users and as time goes by, Genius will become smarter. It’s just day 3 of the release. Give it time and it’ll get better.
Regarding the iPod. If you think the well is running dry (as I sometimes think), go to an Apple store, specially here in NYC. There was a huge line of people purchasing the new Nanos. For the holiday season, they are going to sell like hotcakes. I’m the first to admit, that the iPod is not the best player available, but the hype it has created and the new features (it’s not just colors, it includes many other features)will win some hearts.
Oh, and the iPod touch is still the best media player bar none. That is one sweet device. Nano, I’ll pass.
It’s one thing to hate on Apple, but another thing to not do your job…which is reporting, right? Smart Playlists are great, but they can’t generate a list like the Genius function. Sure the name is lame, but get over it already. Smart Playlists work by essentially doing a specific search on your music… song from the 80’s, certain BPM, in a certain static playlist, hasn’t been played in a month. Etc. While Genius uses some magic pixie dust to some songs from your library that are like a seed song. Kinda Pandora-ish, but by no means a smart playlist.
So why don’t you relax. Eat a cheese steak. Try actually using Genius, for oh…a day or two. Or maybe a week!? Then tell us what you think about how it actually works. Sweet!
This is the quite possibly the dumbest comment I’ve ever read on this site. Genius is a stupid function on an already overbearing program that eats up memory on my computer. It’s absolutely useless. It makes playlists of songs that I already have playlists for. That’s dumb and a waste of space.
How about making a function that works like Pandora that in some place like a university it scans for open iTunes lists and suggests me other bands that I can stream from those lists? Or how about basically including a Pandora style station into iTunes where it uses the iTunes store and if I like the song I can just buy it?
Genius is a complete waste of time and doesn’t add anything to iTunes that wasn’t already there.
Works great for me. I love it. Lots of variety. Lots of different artists and genres, but they almost always seem to fit well together. Maybe you just need more variety in your library…?
Agree, I have been happy with the playlists it generates, from a wide range of artists and styles that work together.
What else goes with your disco house music but more disco house music anyway?
Genius is the dumbest addition to iTunes yet.
I would put money on the fact that people use it for a week while it is fresh and new and then stop using it. Why? BECAUSE YOU ALREADY MADE THAT DAMN PLAYLIST! I don’t need an automater to make a stupid playlist that I’ve already created. If I like song pairings, I’ll do it myself. I think I have a better idea of what’s in my music library than Genius does. Hell, it doesn’t even work on Beatles songs.
Secondly, it should have worked like Pandora. It should stream songs from the Apple store that have the same sound and feel that the song or artist you choose does. Then if I like it, I should be able to buy it. No stupid sidebar and no stupid auto playlist crap.
Again, Apple wastes everyone’s time and the only people who have defended this utter piece of crap software are the fanboys who would defend Apple if it released something that tied your shoes for you.
Lots of anger there. Obviously, it is a user decision whether it works for them or not. If it doesn’t work for you it’s OK. However, stop bashing those that do enjoy the new feature. I would recommend some tea and maybe a girl, you know a real girl, this way, you can actually relax a little. Dumbass
I don’t have any genres for my music, because I can’t decide what half the artists should be filed under. Genius still works really well.
Unfortunately, the rest of the application is still as crap as ever. I would appreciate it if the next iteration focused on things like… I dunno, making sure tracks from a network didn’t make the player seize up like a dead squirrel in a Pixar movie every it they play/pause/downloads album art/does the gapless playback business/view/etc.
I tried Genius on iTunes 8, 3 out of 5 times I got an error (presumably because iTunes doesn’t sell that song so can’t guess what will go with it). And like others say, smart playlists are far more customisable, add in shuffle play mode they are comparable to Genius playlists.
Now (tin foil hat is firmly on). In exchange for this functionality, you allow Apple to collect data about your library (anonymously apparently, but why still make you sign into your account prior to collecting data?) and use a portion of your itunes window as targeted ads, and you can no longer turn off the little arrows pointing to the iTunes store next to each song without a hack. The software is also actively trying to stop Pwned phones from being restored. Is iTunes 8 really worth the trade offs?
I don’t understand why so many people are so against the Genius Playlists. For one, if you don’t like this feature, don’t fucking use it! It’s a small button on the bottom right hand corner of the window… not hard to ignore and use itunes like it was version 7. Secondly, if you can’t resist clicking the button (even though you hate it) and it plays a shitty set of songs or they are all the same genre, then get more music! I have over 10,000 songs and the genius playlists are rocking! Best thing Apple has added to itunes in awhile.
The thing that I thought I would see more people complaining about is Apple’s attempt to take your dollar at a single click, no im not talking about itunes music store, not even the mini store… but the ministore ripoff known as the genius sidebar. This is what pisses me off.
Or how about that grid view? Pretty much a WMP ripoff… and no, im not a pc fanboy… i typed this on my imac biotches!
I’m not a fan of Apple and there closed door approach to supporting other mp3 players with iTunes or allowing WMP (etc) to sync an iPod. In fact I did not allow my kids to own an iPod because I despised the whole ‘closed’ concept –and still do. However my wife bought a ipod touch for one kids.
So after installing and setting up itunes on a network of computers at home with all the files and database stored on the network…. during the process I had a lot of fun renaming iTunes to whatever I wanted (look at the localization file), I finally have it working.
Overall iTunes is not any better than WMP, however it has ONE FEATURE that I think is great — Genius playlists. With 15000 songs — there are songs that were just buried because I didn’t have the time to create playlists. The first time I used a Genius playlists, I said wow I haven’t heard that song in a long time. So far the Genius playlists is the only thing that I really like.
I still don’t like Apple and there closed system. They have great products, but if M$ had a closed system then everyone would be up in arms that they are squashing the competition.
Rod. You get an F- in the internet. And spelling. Learn the difference between there, their and they’re.
I’m sorry I should have used the word their rather than there. However your post was very useful and informative for the a thread. btw way you get an F#!% U for having an incomplete sentence — “And spelling”