RSSApple iTunes 8.0: A closer look at 'Genius'
By Ed Oswald | Published September 9, 2008, 6:44 PM
While Apple is pushing a major update to its client software filled with several new features, easily the biggest new one appears to be its music recommendation engine, called Genius.
This afternoon, the Cupertino company is billing its new Genius feature, premiering with iTunes 8.0 software, as a way to "create a playlist from songs in your library that go great together." Obviously, many times when companies make such claims, the reality may not match the hype.
So BetaNews set out to look into the feature, find out how exactly it works, and determine whether its recommendations are genuinely qualified. According to Apple, the work begins when Genius starts scanning your library of music. As the help file for the feature reads, "To create Genius playlists, iTunes uses anonymous information about your library and other iTunes libraries."
A user must go through several hoops to activate the feature -- apparently a pretty solid attempt by Apple to ensure the user realizes that some data from their machines will indeed be shared with the company.
Once the user accepts, iTunes gathers data from the songs in the user's library, and then sends it to Apple. It is apparently processed there and sent back, after which, iTunes activates the Genius feature.
To begin using Genius, the user clicks on a song he wishes to create a playlist for, then clicks on the Genius icon on the lower right of the application window -- which should be familiar to anyone who has used the Genius Bar Service at an Apple Store.
For the purposes of our test, we selected a track by Daft Punk from their 1997 album Homework, "Revolution 909." The results we got back were somewhat interesting, considering Daft Punk is very much dance music.
Some of the songs that seemed a little out of place were tracks like Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon," Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," and The Moody Blues' "Tuesday Afternoon."
While we're not exactly sure if it had to do with the relatively small size of the library, these results did not seem to gel well. In fairness, however, we selected several other Daft Punk tracks, and it seemed like the recommendations were more accurate for whatever reason.
Either way, clicking on a particular song within the playlist (or anywhere else within the iTunes client) pulls up the Genius sidebar. We found this to be one of the coolest new features.
Essentially, songs can be played and purchased directly from the sidebar, without the need to go through the iTunes Music Store. Additionally, the sidebar knows what music is already in your library, so it recommends new music from the artist you are playing, as well as recommended music selections around iTunes based on that track.
We found this feature even more useful than the Genius playlist, as it negates the need to move back and forth from your library to iTunes, and will also help the user find new music based on what she's already listening to.
Although it's not exactly specified, the whole idea seems born out of the "Just For You" feature that Apple first debuted with iTunes 6 in late 2005, and the MiniStore that debuted in January 2006. The resulting flak that Apple got for the MiniStore's communication back to the company may have a lot to do with why consumers must jump through so many hoops just to activate the feature.
It appears to us that Genius is definitely worth opting into. While the good old "Shuffle" option may be sufficient for most, for those who wish to have their music a little less random, Apple's latest innovation should do the trick.
The reason that you have to jump through hoops to turn Genius on is because whatever it does when it's cataloging your album is a total CPU hog. My first generation MBP had both cores pegged for about an hour, all told, and I had to stop the search a couple of times because my laptop was overheating.
The Genius database is in some undocumented format, and about 13MB for my 40GB music library.
The result of the process? About the only songs that it works for are the tracks I bought from the iTunes store, and those that are tagged *exactly* like the ones in the store. I have used a couple of social networking plugins for iTunes that provided the same playlist generation functionality in the past, as well as Audioscrobbler (now known as Last.FM), and they all do a much better job than Apple at generating playlists and finding new music that I like.
Hopefully they will improve it in the future, but for now it's a poor cousin to the third-party tools it's copied from.
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|I already liked it very much.
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|In addition to the video presentation of all of this at Apple, here is an immediate interview of Steve Jobs by CNBC about the direction of Apple and it's new products. He was even asked about what he thought about Microsoft's new commercial with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. You've got to see his incredible response on video:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/26628547
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|This was available as a free plugin for winamp and wmp for a long, long time now. I think its a great feature, but this is like painting a wheel and calling it genius.
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|What is the winamp plugin called? I'd like to give that a shot.
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|I think it was originally MusicMagic... now known as MusicIP Mixer. It's by a company called Predixis, and it is free, although has some limitations (like a maximum of 100 songs in a playlist, for example).
The paid version has no restrictions...but I've never found a need to pay for it. It works well, although some versions of Winamp don't support the feature as well as others.
There is a similar plugin for iTunes, if the Genius one doesn't impress.
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|I don't care about them bandying about 'genius' too much, what actually pisses me off is:
funnest
NOT. A. WORD.
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|"Funnest" is actually a word.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/funnest
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/funnest
While not commonly used, nor accepted, as evidenced by your comment, it is a legitimate word. Most one syllable adjectives [big, small, fat, thin, sweet, etc...] form the comparative by adding "er" to the end and the superlative by adding "est" to the end.
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|Congratulations, you've just crappadized the word "genius".
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|I certainly like the idea of an AI making recommendations based on my preferences.
AudioGalaxy from years ago has yet to find a match (in technology, not in court.. :)
However, such a system must be independent and user driven and the last I would trust with recommendations is the Apple marketing machine.
In particular I don't need a rec for Pink Floyd or any other major act (they are known anyway!) but of independent artists and newcommers. Unless they are commercially successful I doubt one can find these in iTunes...
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|More of a social recommendation, perhaps?
Been using Jango for a while, and while their recommendation feature (add artists) is sorely lacking, it's pretty easy to click on other users (listening to nearly the same music as you) and browsing their artist lists.
Now if Jango could just pull their suggestions from that, we'd be set... Of course, I suppose it depends greatly on your listening base as well.. Britney Spears in = Britney Spears out, ya know? (The danger of social recs)
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|Hmmm, not familiar with Jango. Gonna give it a try. Also had occasionally good results with theFilter and hope it's getting better over time.
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|I just learned something from Betanews.
Sure...it's *comeletely* useless information...
But still.
Yep, the LHC definitely broke something in the Universe.
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|Since Apple likes the word genius, it would be nice if they actually found a few to work at their genius bars.
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|Apparently you've been visiting pseudo-Apple stores. Because every Apple Genius I've encountered lives up to their lofty titles.
There's a reason Microshaft is ripping Apple YET again by placing "Microsoft Gurus" at select electronic stores that sell PCs.
The whole Apple company from Steve Jobs to the guy who cleans toilets at 1 Infinite Loop are all Geniuses.
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|I wonder if version 8 is even more bloated than 7?
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|It went from around 40MB to over 60 so pretty much...
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|I hate this new crapware.... Apple is the worst of the worst
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|All comments deleted. It's Hawking vs chimp in here (you're chimp).
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|Chimp debates Hawkins. Hawkins forced to retreat. Hawkins claims victory....
Thanks for the heads up. Its nice to know that you are so deluded that you think you are Hawkins - and even more telling that you would debate with a chimp.
But its good to see that you have realized that you are debating a superior level of sentience compared with your own.
Hows that BR doing? Has Sony made back any of the more than $3BILLION they have already lost on it???? They, like you, also claim victory. LOL!
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|*laughs*
Since when is having any kind of discussion with iTard7 considered a "debate"?
Not defending Holly, but...that just made me laugh, man.
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|You do have a point! ;-))
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|That is all that was offered. Man the Zune has a much better real lineup this year.
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|My first-gen Zune is about to get its second major firmware overhaul and all the features of the new series without having to spend any money for the upgrade. I love it!
Apple would never have the guts to make their product line that easily upgradeable. Even iPod Touch users have to pay for some of their firmware updates, and those are only minor releases...
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|I think its great that you like it.
But the fanboy rant everytime the iPod is mentioned is as old as the iPod rant.
Who cares about these overpriced low-fi toys anyway. Like the teenage market really demands anything other than image... Hell, half of them are listening to hip-hop on them anyway - so its hard to even call them 'music' players.
Its a commodity cash cow market simply feeding off image...This is like debating whose toe socks are more hip...Yawn.
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|Agreed. Enthusiasts bought iRivers a long time ago, for their better sound quality, extensive features and OGG support. ;)
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|You've got to see the whole Keynote address on video to really breath in the moment. What a fantastic Keynote by Steve Jobs. And guess who appears at the end of the video and plays two of his popular songs live?
Jack Johnson
My goodness how can anybody in their right mind not love Apple? Here's the whole event on amazing video:
http://events.apple.com....t4bs89/event/index.html
( I can tell from the above screenshots in the article Ed Oswald is a Mac user. :) Smart man.)
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|haha.. come on now, the guy doing the Apple beat SHOULD be using a Mac! :)
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|"My goodness how can anybody in their right mind not love Apple?"
that sort of attitude?
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|I agree! Its a hoot to see ole Jobs with his head up is @ss afraid to compete in the open marketplace by releasing OSX for the PC - afraid that his hardware sales will tank if folks have the choice of running other hardware.
But then its always fun to watch folks feign superiority as they arrogantly display their fear as they are afraid to come out and actually release their products where they say they are superior.
In that regards, Jobs is like a little terrier - you know, the bedroom slippers that bark that are full of themselves as they hide behind their owners legs and yip and only dare to run out and bite when you turn your back...
Yup, big Apple. So superior yet afraid to compete in the open market....Impressive.
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|This is the kind of content that we should be seeing more of on BetaNews. Exploration of software that you're offering up for download.
Interesting overview of the new features. Could be a little clearer in terms of describing the intended functionality before diving in to explain your experience.
Genius is a logical progression to help sell more music. I've never found such recommendation systems to be too helpful, but I'm much more demanding than the average listener.
I'm not an iTunes user. Much too bloated ad restricted for me. I prefer the slim and powerful Foobar.
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|"I've never found such recommendation systems to be too helpful"
That's because you've never had recommendations by Apple. Just download iTunes 8 and see this awesome app in action. It's even available on crappy PCs so enjoy the fun or miss out...
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|Nah, I'll pass.
Last.fm (which is far from perfect) does a better job for enlightened listeners. Genius is for the masses. Besides, when I go to iTunes (God forgives), I'm usually smart enough to know what to buy beforehand.
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|I am loving the new feature. I bet apple is too now that I just bought about 75 or so more songs lol. This feature is great. I do wish however it gave a report when it relabels songs cause my libary is horrible. I try to only use itunes to rip but wmp, itunes winamp and cdex all use different ways sometimes miss tagging that I didnt catch tell a song plays and I go wtf this is not korn this is smashing pumpkins.
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|I use Last.fm and I have yet to hear anything I actually like based on over 9,000 songs from my library. Not impressed and was uninstalled last month.
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|Thanks but no thanks. :)
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|Yeah, I trust Apple with access to my mp3 list as much as I trust Sony. Looks like just another root kit, this time disguised poison koolaid. No thanks, I won't download or install iTunes 8.
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|Did you look at the recommendations on the site?
Also the weekly charts are a much better guage of what's new and decent, rather than the manufactured pop that the 'offical' charts are full of.
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|Pandora does a better job the Last.fm. Still undecided on genius I had it make a playlist and am currently going through it seems to be pretty much along the same kind of music as the song I selected.
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|Persuasive, but what if I have a PC that is not crappy?
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|"What if I have a PC that is not crappy?"
Utterly and absolutely not possible. That's like leaving a small child at a pedophile's convention in which PC_Tool & Hollywood_ are in charge and asking, "I wonder if that kid will be alright?" Again, utterly and absolutely not possible.
Show me a PC anywhere on this planet that is not crappy and I'll smash my beloved and precious Mac with a hammer and post the video on YouTube.
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|That's like leaving a small child at a pedophile's convention in which PC_Tool & Hollywood_ are in charge and asking, "I wonder if that kid will be alright?"
Swinging from a tree would be too good for you, you offensive little prick. I have 3 children of my own, who are all doing just fine, tyvm.
One can only hope you get hit by a bus full of them on the way home from your high-powered job at McD's this afternoon.
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