Filed under: Audio, Windows, Macintosh, Apple
iTunes 8 brings recommendations, HD TV shows
by Christina Warren Sep 9th 2008 at 3:30PM
As my colleagues at TUAW tirelessly liveblogged, Apple had some big super-huge iPod event today. But this is Download Squad, hardware is for the birds. For this site, the big news is iTunes 8. And before everyone tells me how much iTunes sucks, please keep in mind that I published a whole article on iTunes Alternatives last year. iTunes still has its utility, especially if you are a Mac user.
Two of the biggest new features in iTunes 8, which is available now for Windows and Mac, are:
- Song recommendations
- HD TV shows
Song recommendations, via the new "Genius Playlists" and "Genius Sidebar," work to help you find new music or rediscover existing tracks that might go along with your current mood or musical selections. Similar to the algorithm that services like Pandora, Rhapsody and Last.fm use to find similar music, iTunes now has that feature built-in. For Genius Playlists, select a song and press the "Genius" button and iTunes compiles a playlist that is similar in tone and artist genre from your existing library. The Genius Sidebar shows recommendations of other artists in the iTunes store that are similar to what you are currently playing.
I haven't had a chance to really go in-depth with either Genius mode, but from my initial test (we're talking 5 minutes), it did figure out that Postal Service, Death Cab for Cutie and Sufjan Stevens were all apropos for a Genius playlist. Apparently, the algorithm is also focussed on highlighting songs you haven't played in a long time. I just reimported my entire iTunes library, so I wasn't really able to test that feature.
The other big news is HD TV shows. iTunes has offered HD Content via the Apple TV since January, but this is the first time that iTunes, the player, has been able to deliver that content to non-Apple TV systems.
Last year, NBC made waves when it pulled its television content from iTunes and launched the Hulu service in conjunction with 20th Century Fox. Hulu is pretty fantastic (assuming you live in the US or are using a proxy service that says that you do), and pretty popular, so it is VERY interesting to note that NBC is back on iTunes. Shows like Battlestar Galactica, The Office and others will be available in Season Passes or individually in both HD and non-HD variants. Standard definition prices remaint he same, $1.99 an episode. HD episodes are $2.99 a piece, but you also get an iPod-friendly copy at a lower resolution and smaller file size.
Again, I haven't had a chance to buy HD television content yet, but I will be doing so tonight - with the added bonus of also seeing how it looks hooked up to the projector we have in our living room. Still, HD content that is not restricted to Apple TV users is a welcome new feature.
You can see all the iTunes 8 features, including new visualizations and a new grid interface, here. You can download iTunes 8 directly from Apple or through Software Update.
I haven't had a chance to really go in-depth with either Genius mode, but from my initial test (we're talking 5 minutes), it did figure out that Postal Service, Death Cab for Cutie and Sufjan Stevens were all apropos for a Genius playlist. Apparently, the algorithm is also focussed on highlighting songs you haven't played in a long time. I just reimported my entire iTunes library, so I wasn't really able to test that feature.
The other big news is HD TV shows. iTunes has offered HD Content via the Apple TV since January, but this is the first time that iTunes, the player, has been able to deliver that content to non-Apple TV systems.
Last year, NBC made waves when it pulled its television content from iTunes and launched the Hulu service in conjunction with 20th Century Fox. Hulu is pretty fantastic (assuming you live in the US or are using a proxy service that says that you do), and pretty popular, so it is VERY interesting to note that NBC is back on iTunes. Shows like Battlestar Galactica, The Office and others will be available in Season Passes or individually in both HD and non-HD variants. Standard definition prices remaint he same, $1.99 an episode. HD episodes are $2.99 a piece, but you also get an iPod-friendly copy at a lower resolution and smaller file size.
Again, I haven't had a chance to buy HD television content yet, but I will be doing so tonight - with the added bonus of also seeing how it looks hooked up to the projector we have in our living room. Still, HD content that is not restricted to Apple TV users is a welcome new feature.
You can see all the iTunes 8 features, including new visualizations and a new grid interface, here. You can download iTunes 8 directly from Apple or through Software Update.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jamus said 4:31PM on 9-09-2008
My big question with this release was:
"Is the PC version any faster?"
So far, on my XP SP3 box, it seems that thankfully it is. Not by MUCH, but at least it is better. Still slow as a dog to startup, but once opened, it seems smoother. Anyone else noticed a difference?
Reply
maasneotek said 3:00AM on 9-10-2008
Really? my big question is can we now turn off "detecting gapless information" the one feature that tends to crash PC computers.
Anthony said 8:27PM on 9-09-2008
730 MB of RAM being used when in the new tiled view! damn. I guess that's what happens when you have too many songs... I do like the new list view though, slightly different from the last.
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Jash Sayani said 2:48AM on 9-10-2008
Cool. Waiting to get my hands on the new iTunes and some HD video.
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Transcontinental said 6:28AM on 9-10-2008
This is the new fashion : tell me what you like I'll recommend to you what you will like.
I don't want my future tastes to be recommended to me, I want to discover them by myself, I do not want my preferences to be considered as a logical path, but as the chaos of inconsistency as all feelings are. I am not a predictable machine, but an unpredictable human being, I am not a consumer but an artist. We all are.
For crying out loud.
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sow said 9:13AM on 9-16-2008
beautifully poetic!! well said transcontinental.
Turtlemonkeys@optonline.net said 4:45PM on 9-17-2008
heyyyy you sure are unique! TURN IT OFF THEN.
gee whiz that was difficult. You could have saved a lot of time and energy by just turning it off,
(oh wait, its not turned on by default...)
rather than complaining about how it exists in the first place. pretty absurd, like it or not.
Eggbrook said 3:49PM on 9-10-2008
I downloaded Itunes 8 and its terrible! I don't like what they have done with it at all. I'd go into specifics of this I doubt many people will read this and I don't know what the features names are anyway so I would like to not seem like an idiot. All I know is I have switched to Foobar2000. Much lighter and less bloated then Itunes and you can make and save playlists. Also Quick Time Alternative was just featured on Download Squad and last but not least ephpod allows you to put music on almost any Ipod. It has some imcompatibillities but it works great for my first generation shuffle. I hope I helped someone here...
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Amelia said 5:04PM on 9-11-2008
i havent downloaded it yet. i think itunes keeps crasing my PC though
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Gewurztraminer says: Shinkuu Gadouken! said 3:48PM on 9-13-2008
All iTunes 8 has done is serve to show me how painfully behind I am on the HD phenomenon. HD for me is watching DVDs on my PS2 with component cables. And $3 for a TV show? Is that supposed to be a good deal?
Plus my once seemingly expansive 30GB of remaining hard drive space now seems pitifully small. Looks like I'm light years from purchasing TV seasons in any format other than DVD.
Oh, uh, as for iTunes itself... works OK.
Reply
Welcome J-Love! said 11:18PM on 9-13-2008
I dislike that I went to download a free TV show and it downloaded twice. Why doesn't it ask me if I want the regular or HD version? I would choose the regular one since I don't care enough about a free TV show download to give it a gig of my tiny hard drive. Is there any way to get itunes to not download HD stuff unless I specifically ask for it by clicking on and buying an HD show?
Reply