total.pardo

fta @

http://www.jetplanejournal.com/2008/09/itunes-8-first-impressions/

The visualizer was also updated, as rumored, but isn’t much to write home about in my opinion (who even uses visualizers?).

Overall iTunes 8 seems like a pretty solid update, even if it’s a bit light on new features. The Genius is pretty cool though and even the iTunes store integration is fairly discreet and doesn’t feel intrusive.

i completely agree with the author adrain thomas in regards to the full release being solid but light on new features.  i turned a corner on my original impression of genius bar – the genius playlist is VERY valuable for those of us that have a large collection of mp3s (and, at times, not even certain what we have in that library) and want to find connections to that music based on our preferences/tastes.  adrian is right about the itunes store integration – but i still feel the genius bar is “amazon recommends” – sell me more, with the emphasis on impulse purchase.

btw –i don’t use visualizers either – the new default one is cool for approximately 17 seconds.

so far, the genius playlist is not entirely accurate – but i think this kind of comparative analysis will only get better (hopefully apple included heuristics to allow the genius to get “smarter”).  here is what the genius spit out after it chewed on the “Theme from Mission-Impossible” by Clayton/Mullen – picked entirely at random:

i found two songs on there that i did not know about that i really liked.  to me, that’s value – all i needed to do was select a single song and itunes 8 did the work.

it took a SIGNIFICANT amount of time for my two vista desktops and my MBP to run through the setup process – for 150GB of music.  (i dont store all of it on my MBP – just a subset of the favorites.)

time will tell on the “solidness” of this version change from a stability perspective.  i was happy to see last.fm did not break upon the upgrade.  not rolling out the iphone firmware upgrade at the same time as itunes 8 was a good step – but from the user perspective disappointing.  come on friday!