iTunes 8.0: Genius or Retarded?
Last Tuesday, iTunes 8.0 was released. One of the major new features of 8.0 is the so-called “Genius” mode. In this mode, iTunes automatically creates playlists of songs similar to each other. For example, if I chose Carly Comando’s “Everyday” piano solo to be the basis of my Genius playlist, iTunes might create a playlist that had Ed Harcourt’s piano-ballad “Good Friends are Hard to Find” and maybe some Elton John in it. All the Apple fanboys seem to think GeniusMode is the coolest thing ever, or to use a trite phrase, “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
Whoa. Wait a minute here. Hate to break it to you Apple and friends, but welcome to the 21st century. Other music players like Amarok, Winamp (with a plug-in), and services like Last.fm and Pandora have been able to do that for the past five years. And Apple has the nerve to call this feature “genius.” Bullcrap. How about “We’re a little slow with adding useful features” playlists.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a nice feature, and when I’m stuck using iTunes to sync my iPod Touch I’ll use it. But it certainly isn’t even new or original, let alone genius.
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I forgot to say this yesterday. Subscribe to this blog via RSS. Seeing as the content right now is kind of lax, I can see why you don’t want to subscribe. But do it anyway. And by Monday you can expect an analysis of Google’s motives and aspirations for releasing their new web browser, Google Chrome.
Stuff is Coming (Really, it is)
It’s been over six months since I last posted on this thing, but I’m promising you, my “avid readers,” (i.e. the two people that have commented on and already forgotten about this site) that more content is going to be appearing on a regular basis. (At least 1-2 times per week). You can expect this to be anything from rants (like the one about Apple), random essays I had to write for school, thoughts on movies (Burn After Reading will probably be my first one), and my insights into the 2008 election. What would a blog be without something political in it? (Probably a better blog.) (And yes, I know half this post was in parentheses.)
