the filter posts

Filed under: Audio, Utilities, Windows, Apple, Freeware

The Filter for iTunes: "Better than shuffle"

by Jordan Running Oct 11th 2006

The Filter boasts quite a lot. Its tagline is "creates perfect playlists from your iTunes library," and its web site says it's "better than your shuffle button!" What The Filter is is a plugin for iTunes (Windows version only for now, Mac coming soon) that generates playlists when you select a few songs and click on the big black "F" button. Like many programs, The Filter claims to excel at building playlists based on your mood. I gave The Filter a try and found that it's actually not too shabby. I selected a few songs that I thought would go well together in a playlist and it filled out the rest of the playlist with songs that fit in pretty well. While not every one was one that I would have picked myself, none of them seemed out of place, and after all, The Filter touts its ability to help you rediscover music that you'd all but forgotten you had. Like Pandora and other services, The Filter learns from your listening habits and tweaks your playlist based on which tracks you skip and which ones you listen to all the way through. I've tried a number of products that claim to do what The Filter does, but most of them either didn't work very well or were far too complex. The Filter is the first one that really seems both smart enough and simple enough to really give a shot.

Tags: filter, free, freeware, generator, itunes, music, playlist, the filter, TheFilter, windows

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the filter posts

The Filter for iTunes: "Better than shuffle"

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