hexstatik

last week, apple took the wraps off it’s newest line of ipods with updates to the classic, nano and touch. the updates were more or less small incremental changes, with no major changes… with one exception - Genius, which is also a part of the new iTunes 8.

Genius has two parts - playlists and sidebar.

Genius playlists allows you to create awesome playlists instantaneously. once you enable Genius, your library information is sent to apple (anonymously) and analzed. once the analysis is completed, you simply select a song in your library, click on the genius button (in the lower right hand side) and Genius makes a new playlist of 25, 50 or 100 songs. it’s perfect for when you’re in a certain mood and what an entire playlist of similar music, or people who have tons of music and want to rediscover some of the hidden gems in their library, all within literally seconds.

Genius sidebar integrates with the iTunes music store and allows it make recommendations, preview and buy them. i haven’t tried this feature out, but I have recently been looking for more ways to find new music, so i’m also quite excited about this feature as well.

finally, also released last friday was iphone/ipod touch firmware 2.1, which adds support for making genius playlists right on your iphone or ipod touch when you’re on the go - shaweet! a little gem included in the update which hasn’t been widely mentioned, is the new ability to go to the previous song on your iphone by clicking the switch on the included earbuds 3 times. nice touch, apple!