Comments on: The Genius Sidebar is really just a big, fat iTunes money tree

By: geoff 1441

geoff 1441 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:43:19 +0000

does anyone know if you can still get the itunes sidebar under your library to show other albums from the artist and what other listeners bought or was that just old itunes?

By: FK Media

FK Media — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:18:21 +0000

The Genius Sidebar is just a ‘customers who bought this music also purchased…’ – done nicely though :)

By: Partners in Grime

Partners in Grime — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:25:07 +0000

The new iTunes visualizer from Magnetosphere is tres cool.

By: free radical

free radical — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:17:19 +0000

(menu) Store>Turn Off Genius

By: Ahwatukee T

Ahwatukee T — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:02:06 +0000

HOW…..DO…..I…..SHUT……IT……OFF?

By: Joe Buhler

Joe Buhler — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:13:32 +0000

What’s the matter with you people, Apple is in the business of making a profit for its shareholders. They’re not a frigging charity, get over it. Of course, they will try to make money with this. You don’t have to click on those songs, nobody is forcing you. It’s like those idiots who complain about the quality of TV programming…. That’s why you have an off button on your remote. If you don’t like it turn the damn thing off……….. Enjoy Genius, it’s a great tool.

By: Lynn Wallenstein

Lynn Wallenstein — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:06:45 +0000

Use Songbird (www.getsongbird.com)and there are tons of plugins to give you music recommendations… pulling data from Last.fm which IMO is a much better source.. the recommendations I got from iTunes are complete crap.

On a sidenote, as someone who has a large enough music collection that I in no way could remember what is in it, I was really hoping for recommendations based on my own library as well … at least just check to see if I already have the song before asking me to buy it.

By: zeasar

zeasar — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:45:38 +0000

And the annoying ads on my Window’s live messenger…

By: free radical

free radical — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:55:04 +0000

Funny that no one complains about Google adware. Is this any different whatsoever? Oh yeh, Google doesn’t let you turn off the sidebar.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:48:44 +0000

Your bitching, quit it.

By: Joe S.

Joe S. — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:01:52 +0000

A funny thing happened to me today. I walked into a Best but today and to my total astonishment they actually had products on the shelf!!!! The thing is I didn’t have to walk into the store unless I wanted to. I could look at products & not buy anything unless I wanted to & this pissed me off to no end. The iTunes store is there (like the Best Buy) if you want to buy something. This is not Adware as someone pointed out. You don’t even have to turn the Genius function on & can turn it off anytime you like. Genius>Turn Off Genius. Simple.

By: John Hooper

John Hooper — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:32:40 +0000

Itunes has always been thinly veiled adware, but now at least Apple is being completely open about it.

By: stwf

stwf — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:27:02 +0000

Shocking!

You mean Apple had an ulterior motive when giving away useful software? They made it, its free, they can bring it anyway they want.

This reinforces the fact that Apple does do a disservice with the cheap/free iLife package (as well as iTunes). Free apps with this level of polish decimate the rest of the industry, take it from me, a indie developer thats struggling to compete with iPhoto.

Does anyone think this is annoying enough that someone will develop a rival music player app? Are you annoyed enough to pay for a rival music player app? If not then you shouldn’t be complaining, as a non paying customer you have little to stand on.

By: Trae Dorn

Trae Dorn — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:52:37 +0000

This only can mean one thing…

WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

By: Rahul Das

Rahul Das — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:48:05 +0000

iTunes has gone from being an awesome music library to being a bloated, heavy thing which takes well over a minute to start up and be usable (at least on my old computer). There should really be a lite version like there is for winamp. On which is without the store, videos and stuff. One simple version which lets me manage my music and put it on my iPod. Let the people who actually need it, download the full version.

By: Art

Art — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:45:28 +0000

Well, duh … Apple is no different than any other company that tries to take over your computer experience. Apple is second only to Realplayer in terms of crap they try to pull over on you. Just look at Quicktime and how they used to force you to install iTunes. They can go choke on it.

By: Ricky Cadden

Ricky Cadden — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:38:30 +0000

It should be noted that Winamp is free, offers the same media library features AND has had a ‘Genius’ feature for over a year.

And it doesn’t have ads. Cause it’s free.

By: J Rob

J Rob — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:09:19 +0000

I think SOMEONE forgot his Red Bull in the freezer . . .

But, seriously, that pancreas crack was in poor taste.

(However, as a diabetic, I may be biased.)

By: thebonafortuna

thebonafortuna — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:08:34 +0000

I still wonder why iTunes forces their mobile service to run in the background of my computer, eating ever more resources. I do not own an iPhone, nor do I ever plan to. Their should be a nice convenient way to disable that service without crippling the program.

By: Hidesquadron1

Hidesquadron1 — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:00:07 +0000

Props for identifying the correct argument. It doesn’t matter if you can turn it off… its the reasoning behind turning it on. If ads are part of a software feature, it becomes bloatware.