Revealed and confirmed: iTunes 8 Genius Edition feature list!

Davey Winder
Sunday, 07 September 2008 12:55

IT Industry - Strategy

OK, so next up on our big feature list has to be that HD support.

The high definition video downloading functionality is expected to come in the form of support for the purchase of HD quality TV episodes. This represents something of a sea-change for Apple.

After all, at the moment the only iTunes Store HD content is for Apple TV and only in 720p format and even then there is not very much of it.

If, as has been suggested, it starts offering full HD content for everyone then that's a big move forward. Of course, many would argue that a bigger move forward would be to start offering decent quality 'hi def' audio as well, but that's a different argument.

So what else is new? How does a grid view for sorting iTunes content visually grab you, because that is on the list if you will excuse the pun.

There is also a new music visualizer to be included, almost certainly based upon the truly incredible Magnetosphere from artist Robert Hodgin.

Indeed, up until just a few months back this was available as an iTunes plug-in, although not any more, fuelling the rumour mill. As does the fact that Hodgin admits selling it to a third party.

The clincher though was the description by Kevin Rose on Twitter which pretty much painted a picture of Magnetosphere.

One iTunes 8 'feature' that remains firmly embedded in the rumour-mill and is unlikely to appear on Tuesday, however, is the much speculated about subscription model. None of the credible sources has been saying anything about that at all.