Downloaded the latest, greatest version of Apple’s iTunes software this morning and I’m finding a lot of love from the new “genius” recommendations. There are a few annoyances that can easily be fixed in an 8.1 — or even 8.01 — version but on the whole it’s a worthy upgrade.
By default, the genius is turned off because it only works if you agree to let Apple know all about your music library (anonymously, the company says). So to try it out, go to the “store” menu and click to turn it on. A new window pane opens at the right-hand side of your music list. Then there’s a slight delay before you get any recommendations as iTunes uploads your library data. Once that’s done, click on any song in your library and genius tells you top songs by that artist not already in your library and songs by other artists you might also like. I found the recommendations interesting and relevant. It doesn’t work for stuff that’s too obscure or non-commercial, however. DJ Dangermouse’s illegal Grey Album, for example, produces missing songs from a different artist (DJ Dangerous) and no related artist recommendations.
There’s also a small flaw in the recommendations engine which seems to happen when an identical song appears on a couple of albums, say, its original release plus on a greatest hits album. If you have a copy of a song from a greatest hits album, the genius may still recommend the exact same song from the original album. So you have to be a little careful about what songs you actually may be missing before clicking to buy.
There’s one big problem with the way genius recommendations are displayed, however. As you can see, there’s no indication whether a song is protected by the Fairplay DRM (yuck) or comes unprotected from the iTunes store “plus” section. Since the record labels are trying to put the squeeze on Apple, most of the music in the iTunes store still carries the justly hated DRM. The labels are trying to bolster iTunes competitors like Amazon and Rhapsody by giving them a huge selection of unlocked music that’s not made available on iTunes. That’s stinky and absurd but it’s the current reality for consumers. I recommend only buying unlocked music — which is also ripped at a higher quality setting — whenever you can. In my case, that means I always check Amazon’s MP3 store for tracks that iTunes offers only with DRM.
No doubt that the unfair treatment infuriates Steve Jobs and company but it’s no excuse for this consumer-unfriendly feature of iTunes genius recommendations. The program ought to show if a recommended song is available in the non-DRM “plus” format or not. They could easily show the small “plus” icon that iTunes uses throughout the rest of the store to indicate DRM-free music.
I do really like iTunes’ newly enhanced grid view that shows a mini picture of each album cover. At the top of the grid view, you can press a button to sort by album, artist, genre or composer. Double click on an album cover in the “album” view and you go to a listing of all the songs. Double click on an album cover in “artist” view and you get all that artist’s songs sorted by album. Same with the “genre” and “composer” views. Double click to get a list of all songs in the category sorted by album. And the new grid view works similarly for other stuff in your library like Tv shows and podcasts.
Finally, there’s been a slight hue and cry over features Apple supposedly removed from iTunes. A lot of this controversy is misplaced. Import and CD burning choices that used to be in one place have simply been moved. The two sections used to be under separate tabs in the “advanced” pane of iTunes preferences. Now the import choices have been moved to an “Import settings…” button on the general pane of preferences. And a pop-up options box appears when you press the “Burn Disc” button with all the same old options that used to be in preferences. There’s been no loss of MP3 settings, most importantly.
The choice to display different columns of data about each track has also moved to a new “View options…” box available off the main “View” menu. It seems like this new option box, with almost 40 check boxes including everything from album and artist to sample rate and release date, is actually a cool enhancement.
The only real loss I’ve discovered so far is that you can’t easily remove the little arrow links to the iTunes store from every track listing. I’m not sure that’s a huge loss but enterprising folks are already devising ways to hack iTunes settings back the way you want them.
Overall, while there’s nothing insanely amazing in iTunes 8, it’s a solid and substantial upgrade. Hopefully, a slightly tweaked version will be following soon.
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