Firstly - the sidebar is a replacement to the ministore. If you never used the ministore, you won't appreciate how good it is.
Now I'm a bit lost on why the Genius playlists have sucked for you. How much music do you own? Is it properly tagged? Have you been using the rating system in the past? In my opinion, Genius has significantly improved the usefulness of my iPod touch. Relying on my own playlists started to get stale and there is only so much I can stick on a 16 gig iPod (especially when 10 of those gigs are dedicated to podcasts and video). Now I find myself listening to more music - a quick reshuffle of my multiple Genius playlists brings me hours of good music.
Yeah, I sound like an Apple fanboy - but with with the stuff Apple has been producing, I wouldn't complain if I got a reach-around from Steve Jobs.
Oh, one more thing - 336 un-listened to podcasts? Dude, catch up :)
Zee.
· 1 year ago
I gotta say, the only feature i have been using much is Genius - and you're right..it is a sales tool but in terms of creating fantastic playlists, it really does that for me. I'm hearing tracks that I didn't know I had yet obviously want to hear and in terms of similarity in tempo & style...it nearly always gets it right.
iTunes had a visualizer before version 8. I think the Genius is a great idea, it seems to work for me. The most important part is making sure your song metadata matches that of the iTunes store.
As blatant a sales tool, I like the Genius sidebar, I've found some great music I had never heard before.
tabatha
· 1 year ago
No.sorry you don't have every Crowded House single just becasue you have all the albums. There are many many versions of songs and 'b' sides that are not on the official release of each album. The piano version of People Are Like Suns and So Dramatic for example
djdigit
· 1 year ago
I've yet to find any problems with iTunes 8 and Genius works pretty sweet on my Vista PC. :/
Lowell Cremorne
· 1 year ago
Just one thing - iTunes has had a visualizer since version 1 ;)
Rich Becker
· 1 year ago
I dunno Duncan. It almost reads as if your met your own expectation it would fail. Genius isn't supposed to think for you and it doesn't proclaim to be AI. Like others have said, it seems to work well enough to find a new track or let you know when a new album is released.
As for Crowded House, it might might be Apple hating them as much as the label hating Apple. Not every label can be found on iTunes. Often it's because the label or the band doesn't want to be found there. Try the search bar and you'll find eight albums.
Best, Rich
jrrrl
· 1 year ago
i agree with you 100% duncan. the "top songs you're missing" almost always shows songs i already have, and "recommendations" is nothing really but links to "buy." who is going to just start clicking "buy" on random songs? at least link to something besides mostly useless itunes reviews. if apple isn't willing to make or allow more content for music, put links to the band's wikipedia page or myspace page at least.
apple hasn't been doing great lately, with mobileme, genius, iphone problems (even though i still love mine), and safari kind of lagging behind chrome, ie8, and firefox.
Chase Grogan
· 1 year ago
Stop dogging on duncan. Really, genius just sucks. I've run into all the same problems he has.
Racing School
· 1 year ago
I think your expectations are a little bit too high. It works really fine for me.
Mike Bell
· 10 months ago
I agree mate, I think that it is really cool, but it is OK that you might have different opinion
Jean Grobler
· 1 year ago
Man, I love Genius, and I'm quite a hard to please music listener type. I think the playlist feature specifically is amazing. If ever I'm in a certain mood, or have some people over, and I get Genius to base a playlist on a particular song(as you do), I find that the flow and the general mood of the playlists is really, really good. It definitely doesn't seem randomly generated to me. And it picks up on things like choosing tracks by bands that are in some way connected with the artist that the playlist is based on, and choosing the RIGHT tracks, which of course is more important. Also, I don't have a problem with the Genius 'store' sidebarm, even though it is a sales tool. Noone is forcing you to buy the music, and, actually, I've found out about some pretty good artists and bands that way. Personally, I think Genius is WAY better than Pandora...it seems more attuned to specific music tastes, and nuances in taste...anyway, that's my 2 cents
bedroom furniture
· 6 months ago
I think the playlist feature specifically is amazing. If ever I'm in a certain mood, or have some people over, and I get Genius to base a playlist on a particular song(as you do), I find that the flow and the general mood of the playlists is really, really good. It definitely doesn't seem randomly generated to me. And it picks up on things like choosing tracks by bands that are in some way connected with the artist that the playlist is based on, and choosing the RIGHT tracks, which of course is more important. Also, I don't have a problem with the Genius 'store' sidebarm, even though it is a sales tool. Noone is forcing you to buy the music, and, actually, I've found out about some pretty good artists and bands that way.
club penguin
· 5 months ago
I'm a bit lost on why the Genius playlists have sucked for you. How much music do you own? Is it properly tagged? Have you been using the rating system in the past? In my opinion, Genius has significantly improved the usefulness of my iPod touch. Relying on my own playlists started to get stale and there is only so much I can stick on a 16 gig iPod.
club penguin
· 5 months ago
It almost reads as if your met your own expectation it would fail. Genius isn't supposed to think for you and it doesn't proclaim to be AI. Like others have said, it seems to work well enough to find a new track or let you know when a new album is released.
Pat Hawks
· 1 year ago
I dunno. Putting Vista out of it's misery gives it bonus points in my book...
Nick Hodge
· 1 year ago
@pat: Apple's stuff installs all sorts of nasties in Vista I don't want. Like MobileMe and signed drivers that should just work -- the Apple promise.
@duncan: Apple is Evil for putting the genius hate on Crowded House. :-)
All Comments
Firstly - the sidebar is a replacement to the ministore. If you never used the ministore, you won't appreciate how good it is.
Now I'm a bit lost on why the Genius playlists have sucked for you. How much music do you own? Is it properly tagged? Have you been using the rating system in the past? In my opinion, Genius has significantly improved the usefulness of my iPod touch. Relying on my own playlists started to get stale and there is only so much I can stick on a 16 gig iPod (especially when 10 of those gigs are dedicated to podcasts and video). Now I find myself listening to more music - a quick reshuffle of my multiple Genius playlists brings me hours of good music.
Yeah, I sound like an Apple fanboy - but with with the stuff Apple has been producing, I wouldn't complain if I got a reach-around from Steve Jobs.
Oh, one more thing - 336 un-listened to podcasts? Dude, catch up :)
As blatant a sales tool, I like the Genius sidebar, I've found some great music I had never heard before.
As for Crowded House, it might might be Apple hating them as much as the label hating Apple. Not every label can be found on iTunes. Often it's because the label or the band doesn't want to be found there. Try the search bar and you'll find eight albums.
Best,
Rich
apple hasn't been doing great lately, with mobileme, genius, iphone problems (even though i still love mine), and safari kind of lagging behind chrome, ie8, and firefox.
@duncan: Apple is Evil for putting the genius hate on Crowded House. :-)