Ads have invaded iTunes 8 and I hate it. Suddenly, on the right side of iTunes, the Genius Sidebar now displays at least 23 one-click buy links for me to spend my hard-earned cash through. What Apple calls a friendly recommendation is more like impulsive music buying.
I’m diggin it. Someone pass me a smoking apparatus of some sort. I would love it if Apple deployed this to the iPod/iPhone line.
Just plugged in my first-gen iPod Touch to the new iTunes 8 and was notified of a software update to version 2.1, which adds the Genius playlist creation feature. So there’s that, I guess. There also seem to be some speed improvements all around. It’s still downloading and updating, though, so I haven’t actually tried any of it out yet. If you don’t hear back from me, assume everything went swimmingly.
UPDATE: iTunes 8 is now available for download.
Apple just announced iTunes 8 and confirmed some features we’ve been hearing about, plus throws a couple more into the mix. You can download iTunes here.
Features:
Yesterday we posted about the possibility of Magnetosphere being the visualizer that Rose mentioned a week back and last night via Twitter, Rose confirmed this.
Confirmed: This was visualization I saw in a build of iTunes 8.0 – http://tinyurl.com/67m3pv
Magnetosphere revisited (audio by Tosca) from flight404 on Vimeo.
Could the work of artist Robert Hodgins be what Kevin was talking about the other day? The Magnetosphere plugin was available up until a few months back. I can’t remember the last time I used a visualizer. Maybe when I was on a Windows machine.
Oh, that Kevin Rose. Seems he was right about that whole September 9 Apple event thing, so now we’re a little more confident about his other predictions. Remember, iTunes 8 is supposed to be a true-to-life point release, and not nearly a bug fix or anything. Juciy rumors circulating the likes of Twitter and Tumblr (follow me if you want to be extra bored throughout the day!) suggest a Pandora-like playlist suggestion system that’s based on things like star ratings (which I never use, but whatever) and number of times played.
Less interesting but still worth mentioning, Rose called iTunes 8’s new visualizations “really trippy” and that there’s one with “planet like objects wrapping around each other w/stars/light streams.”
Tuesday, folks. Get ready to be totally not shocked because everything would have leaked by then.
Update: Mr. Rose just updated his blog with the following comments on iTunes 8.
What’s new in iTunes 8
iTunes 8 includes Genius, which makes playlists from songs in your library that go great together. Genius also includes Genius sidebar, which recommends music from the iTunes Store that you don’t already have.
With iTunes 8, browse your artists and albums visually with the new Grid view; download your favorite TV shows in HD quality from the iTunes Store; sync your media with iPod nano (4th generation), iPod classic (2nd generation), and iPod touch (2nd generation); and enjoy a stunning new music visualizer.
