Apple rolled out its new version of iTunes 8, which contains new browsing options and accessibility enhancements. However, the major new addition is Genius, which lets you automatically create playlists from songs in your music library that go great together with just one click
Using Apple’s breakthrough Genius feature is easy just select any song, click the Genius button, and iTunes instantly creates a playlist of songs that go great together from your own library. You can preview the playlist Genius creates, refresh the list to choose different songs and save Genius playlists to enjoy again later. You can even create Genius Playlists on-the-go with the new iPod classic, iPod touch, iPod nano and iPhone. The Genius sidebar appears right in iTunes and recommends music from the iTunes Store that you don’t already have, based on the songs you select.
Apple tweaked iTunes 8 interface to let users browse by album and video covers. The new version of iTunes 8 is patterned strongly after Apple’s iPhoto ‘08. Users can browse thumbnails of albums, artists, genres, or even composers. Users can quickly skim through the different albums of an artist, genre, or composer by moving the mouse over the thumbnail. The feature also works for movies, TV shows, podcasts, and audio books.
Other changes introduced in iTunes 8 include built-in support for Apple’s VoiceOver screen reader for vision-impaired users on Mac OS X Leopard, or Microsoft’s Windows-Eyes technology on Windows Vista or XP.
Finally, iTunes 8 has the ability to play back high-definition TV shows, a newly added component to Apple’s iTunes Store. Apple also says that when users purchase an HD version of a TV show, they also get an iPod-ready version of the same video as well. And iTunes 8 also includes a new visualizer module that generates patterns in time with the music being played.
Tags: itunes