I updated to iTunes 8 so that I could try out "Genius" and see what all the talk has been about. I have to say, this thing is pretty swell.
I had been thinking that it was just a "smart" something or other to make suggestions for more iTunes purchases. Not that it wouldn't be neat to have such a thing, but it wouldn't be a new and hype-worthy item. We've seen smart suggestions in such as the nifty Netflix suggestions engine and going back to the earliest web agents like "Firefly".
"Genius" is a different animal though and maybe just a little spooky. You know; like "Skynet" spooky.
Setting that aside though -- because, like, are you going to take on Skynet? -- I've been having some great fun with Genius.
If you haven't heard; Genius is a new feature in iTunes and in the iPod player in my 'Touch. You give it a song from your library and it will make up a playlist on the fly from other songs in your library. This is very cool.
It will make suggestions in the iTunes store too, but that's actually a side feature in the desktop iTunes. The main function is to make interesting sets out of music you already have.
Apparently it does this by looking, if you will, at your library and playlists and then sort of mixing your lists into the giant pool of iTunes user preferences and then coming up with some magic numbers for generating playlists.
And not just one or two playlists, but lots and lots of them; all based on your library and some model of your tastes.
Now that's an agent.
After it does all it's inspecting and comparing and cyphering hen it sets up a model in your systems. And then you can click on pretty much any song in your library and then click the Genius button and up comes a playlist.
I've been testing it with songs from the far corners of my broad music list and, geeze, this thing is good! What's really cool is that, somehow or other, it has picks stuff out of my library that I've completely forgotten about but that makes a good -- sometimes great -- playlist.
It does this magic on iTunes on my desktop and, really impressively, it does it on the fly in my iPod using only the library that is stored there at the moment.
The only misses, if you can call them that, have been a couple of times when Genius reported that it didn't have enough information about a song to be able to make up a playlist. But, to be fair, the only times that it's given me that "not enough info" message are when the selected seed piece fits one of these situations:
-- (1a) is an indie song that nobody but me and the artist have ever heard of and (1b) that I haven't included on any of my own playlists, or
-- (2) the song name &/or the artist's name do not match with the Genius system database. [note: having matched indies not in the store, it seems that it does NOT require songs to be in the store; but only match up with songs in lists that also match up with songs in other lists.]
Otherwise: spooky cool selections and some really fun playlists.
By the way, contrary to some reports that I've seen, I've had good luck regardless of the genre, including jazz and classical sets.
I like Genius -- it works.
If you haven't heard; Genius is a new feature in iTunes and in the iPod player in my 'Touch. You give it a song from your library and it will make up a playlist on the fly from other songs in your library. This is very cool.
It will make suggestions in the iTunes store too, but that's actually a side feature in the desktop iTunes. The main function is to make interesting sets out of music you already have.
Apparently it does this by looking, if you will, at your library and playlists and then sort of mixing your lists into the giant pool of iTunes user preferences and then coming up with some magic numbers for generating playlists.
And not just one or two playlists, but lots and lots of them; all based on your library and some model of your tastes.
Now that's an agent.
After it does all it's inspecting and comparing and cyphering hen it sets up a model in your systems. And then you can click on pretty much any song in your library and then click the Genius button and up comes a playlist.
I've been testing it with songs from the far corners of my broad music list and, geeze, this thing is good! What's really cool is that, somehow or other, it has picks stuff out of my library that I've completely forgotten about but that makes a good -- sometimes great -- playlist.
It does this magic on iTunes on my desktop and, really impressively, it does it on the fly in my iPod using only the library that is stored there at the moment.
The only misses, if you can call them that, have been a couple of times when Genius reported that it didn't have enough information about a song to be able to make up a playlist. But, to be fair, the only times that it's given me that "not enough info" message are when the selected seed piece fits one of these situations:
-- (1a) is an indie song that nobody but me and the artist have ever heard of and (1b) that I haven't included on any of my own playlists, or
-- (2) the song name &/or the artist's name do not match with the Genius system database. [note: having matched indies not in the store, it seems that it does NOT require songs to be in the store; but only match up with songs in lists that also match up with songs in other lists.]
Otherwise: spooky cool selections and some really fun playlists.
By the way, contrary to some reports that I've seen, I've had good luck regardless of the genre, including jazz and classical sets.
I like Genius -- it works.
UPDATE to the "Genius" story. The trick is still pretty neat when it works, but it turns out that it's not so much of a genius as just a sort of virtual idiot savant.
"Ten minutes to Whopner"... all must be precisely as the 'genius' expects to see it or it just doesn't see it at all.
Frustrating for me because I have several song collections. That is; bunches of the same song performed by different artists. Because the iPod Touch's display gives you little to go on for selections like "Songs" or "Artists" you are forced to make some manual compromises for items such as the songs in my collections.
For example; my song collections show just enough of the song title to be recognizable but still leave enough room for (a portion of) the artist's name. This is so that I can see which "Come Together" is the Beatles and which is any of a zillion other artists.
That little trick works for me -- because I really am a genius -- but it totally fools poor little "Genius" into thinking that it's a song it doesn't know.
Stupid little Genius. If the artist says Sound Garden and the song title says "Come Together - Snd Grdn" then it is a song you know. Figure it out, jeeniuss.