Revealed and confirmed: iTunes 8 Genius Edition feature list!

By Davey Winder
Sunday, 07 September 2008 12:55

Strategy

With the iTunes 8 launch now just 48 hours away, what can you expect to see that is new and exciting in what some are referring to as iTunes Genius Edition? We can reveal all...

As I revealed right here a couple of weeks ago, Apple is set to reveal a swathe of new products this coming Tuesday, 9th September. Amongst them will be iTunes 8.

Although there had been some previous doubt as to whether the iTunes upgrade would make the Tuesday event, it has now been confirmed by "a person close to the situation" that iTunes 8 will debut this coming week after all.

What's more, the same source has given the nod to the fact that most of the speculation regarding features has been correct as well. So what can we expect to see in iTunes 8?

The big two features will have to be the Genius function and support for Hi Def video.

Let's start with the whole Genius Edition thing. This relates to what you might think of a music recommendation service, much the same as Amazon tells you what books you should be buying based on what you have already bought.

iTunes 8 will recommend music that you don't already own, but can purchase from the Apple iTunes Music Store, based upon the tracks you already have.

It will build a Genius Playlist using existing songs from your collection, and using a Genius Sidebar recommend new ones to add to the mix.

I suspect that this will either be hugely useful, or hugely annoying. It all depends on just how clever the Genius is and, I guess, how eclectic your own musical taste.

I doubt a machine could figure out that I like to listen to Slipknot, REM and Andrea Bocelli one after the other...

What other new features will appear in iTunes 8, and what about this high definition support? All will be revealed on page 2.

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