Announced today, iTunes 8 is officially available for download, and it does indeed add some nice new features to Apple's music software. The most interesting of them all is Genius, a playlist- and recommendation-generating sidebar/button combo that uses the combined power of the iTunes user base to make cohesive, nicely flowing mixes.
In order to work correctly, Genius requires two things of iTunes users after download: you must have an iTunes store account (a lengthy disclaimer on the sign-in page assures you that all your account information is stored anonymously), and you must wait for iTunes to scan your entire music library and catalog your iTunes collection.
The latter process took a while; Genius took about 20 minutes to fully scan my 2,857 song (12.4GB) library, or just over a minute and a half per gig of music. Still, I'm assuming this is a one-time-only wait, and that subsequent additions to my iTunes library will take much less time to scan and catalog. In other words, I hope Genius doesn't scan my entire library every time I add new songs.
The reason behind this lengthy song indexing and data-export to Apple? In his iPod and iTunes announcement today, Steve Jobs said it was to match up your tastes to other iTunes users. Genius analyzes what those users had also bought, what they're also listening to, and displays your Genius playlists and recommendations accordingly.
The first few passes through Genius worked great, and it's a straightforward, intuitive process. To use Genius, you select a track in your library and click the "Genius" button at the bottom right corner of the iTunes interface (which looks suspiciously like the Springfield Isotopes logo). Once you're viewing a playlist, buttons on the top right of the iTunes interface let you refresh that playlist with a new batch of songs, save that playlist for good, or adjust the number of songs in your list.
In my first test, playing a song by The Roots brought up a 25-song playlist immediately after clicking the button. This playlist was spot-on, consisting of similar hip-hop acts (Ghostface, Madvillain, The Pharcyde, and Public Enemy, for example). The Genius Sidebar also updated properly, giving me one-click access to purchase albums and songs by The Roots, as well as recommendations and buy links for similar-sounding acts (Rahzel, Talib Kweli, Ghostface, and Mos Def, for example).
The Pixies built a playlist featuring Pavement, The Breeders, Modern Lovers, Neil Young, and Neutral Milk Hotel--another success. Playing Wilco also brought up some nice results: a playlist filled with Arcade Fire, Spoon, Grandaddy, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Elliott Smith songs. But mixed in with those results were a few head-scratchers: the Ramones, Ween, and Nirvana.
After that, my tests got really interesting. The Roots, Pixies, and Wilco aren't entirely mainstream, so I decided to test the results with a band everybody knows... but has music that isn't available on iTunes. Yes, the Beatles.
Launching "Dear Prudence" and clicking the Genius button brought up this message.
OK, maybe that song just has no equal. I tried something from Revolver.
No dice. Ah, look at all the lonely people trying to build playlists.
Maybe "Come Together" off of Abbey Road? Nope.
What this suggests is that the iTunes Store listings largely determine what is showing up in your Genius list. If an artist isn't available in the iTunes Store, the Genius playlist creator may not work.
I tested this further by using the Genius button with some really obscure acts and mislabeled songs. That didn't work, either; I'm guessing because Genius couldn't find those songs in the iTunes Store and in other users' lists of purchased tunes.
(Update: Assistant Editor Nick Mediati reports the Genius feature didn't completely work when he used Kool and the Gang's "Celebration"--which he bought from the iTunes Store, no less--to build a Genius playlist. The Genius sidebar listed recommendations for him to buy, but did not generate a playlist.)
All in all, Genius is a nice addition to iTunes, and it's something that I'll use a lot. Rather than a criticism, I thought the above experiences were just kind of funny, and it makes a whole lot of sense that the new feature has problems recommending mislabeled and very obscure songs.
But let the record show that I have fooled Apple's Genius within minutes of testing. As such, I declare myself some sort of supergenius. And, yes, you can be a supergenius too, just as long as you listen to obscure music, mislabel your ID3 tags in iTunes, or like the Beatles.
