I love how when Google or Microsoft gather information on consumers people get nervous, but when Apple does it no one seems to mind. My impression of iTunes 8 is one big yawn. I still don't want to use it.

forpeterssake

I am having trouble discerning what makes the new ipods better than the new Zunes.

tasselhoff76

I gave up on Itunes a while ago, and Apple along with it...something about me wanting to buy hardware and not contracts seemed to go against Apple's plans.

At least this update has some kind of new feature, instead of just being a workaround for the latest DRM-removal programs.

Skiffer

@caedus: can you share your scripts? My contact info is listed at the website in my profile.

aparsons

@le_sacre: automatically add the new folder to the itunes library.

aparsons

Definitely feels more bloated, but i am geeking out about Battlestar Galactica

datliv

@Zennalathas: get Musikcube and watch it fly. It's what I used before switching to Linux. Break out of your iPrison.

Exaile has had this genius thing for a couple years already in their Dynamic playlists.

And it still won't beat Amarok. No sirree.

rockonfred

@Dave S.: They can't really do anything with that information, it proves nothing unless they start to embed files with markers then share them, but pirates would be on that in a matter of hours.

I love iTunes for music it's easily the simplest program I've come across, my biggest gripe as an audiophile is it's support for audiobooks. I don't want to have to convert my files for them to be compatible, I think they need a new tag for audiobooks so you can mark a number of files and they appear as a single track.

Klopfer123

Yup 8 is out for download here in Canada too! [www.iphone-hacks.com]

bryonbrock

what action do you want itunes to perform on your monitored folder?

le_sacre

@Zennalathas: yeah, you do need 4GB to work on vista 64... I got into vista using 1.5GB and was pretty bad some time ago, buy a couple $30 gigs and your machine will feels 10x better.

VakeroRokero

two points:

1) "genuis in integrated with your ipod" - does that mean another firmware update that breaks more than it fixes? or do you have to buy a new ipod?
2) "grid view for people who don't want to use the full coverflow view" - aka most people with more than 10 albums. Let's face it, coverflow was cool tech, and IS cool if you've got your iTunes on party-shuffle. But for doing anything else with it, it's pretty pointless. And now Apple have put it everywhere... doh!

Al Iguana

I'm a heavy iTunes/iPod user. IMO, the only thing iTunes really needs is a better way to tag your songs. The "genre" tag is ridiculously useless.

Example: I'm listening to "Feelin' Bad Blues" on the soundtrack from the movie "Crossroads." I want to be able to tag it: blues slideguitar instrumental slow mellow. But no dice.

Proposed mechanism: You want to be able to do three things:

1. Tag a single song with multiple tags at once
2. Tag multiple songs with a single tag at once
3. Tag multiple songs with multiple tags.

The first two are easy. Just have two columns, one for tags and one for songs. Shift-select the tags you want, and drag them onto a song, or vice versa.

The third item is a little trickier, but can be accomplished through the use of a third area: a "shelf" or "tray" or whatever you want to call it. Shift-select the songs you want, drag them into the tray, then shift-select the tags you want, and drag those onto the tray. Vwa-la.

Naturally, I think Apple could pretty it all up and whatnot. For example, for each iTunes could check the internet then make suggestions based on what other people tagged it, a la del.icio.us. But the overall concept is pretty simple. And of course, people who DON'T care about tagging their music wouldn't have to use this capability. They could just ignore it.

- Alaska Jack

Alaska Jack

Built-in FLAC support please!

stinkbucket

I hope the in-ipod-ness will be made available for the 80 and 160GB classics (not to mention the new 120). I'm actually really, really looking forward to this.

Gilbert

Downloading now. Damn its a 65mb download, never remember the older versions being so big.

holdemm

@jharris0221:

A minute per GB...that's just ridiculous...

I already use Songbird as my media player in Linux, and to sync my iPod in Windows. It'll probably replace WMP11 as my media player when it's finished.

Zennalathas

...but is it still a goddamn bloated piece of shit?

Recoil

Geez, I thought Apple is all about user-friendlyness and practicability. So when do they ad this fraking folder monitoring?

alcyone

In the iTunes store they suggest music based on your existing collection. For me they are way off on that. So Genius would want to be a lot smarter to be useful. We'll see.

Henry94

@Zennalathas

Songbird might be a memory hog, but I bet its not topping out at 350mb like iTunes 8 is right now. However, that's with Genus scanning my Library and Music playing...

Genus takes about a minute per GB to scan your collection on a fast computer, and another 3 mins to finish up.

Haven't seen how to make playlists yet..

jharris0221

Kind of nice. But nothing makes me change from Winamp.

guimialfaro

I would have been a lot more excited for the following:

* iTunes can monitor folders dynamically like Picasa does with photos, so I dont have to run scripts on my own (same for iPhoto)
* have iPhoto have the ability to read metadata from Lightroom correctly, or at least make all the options available
* have iPhoto have non-destructive editing like Lightroom, so that I dont have copies of photos just because I want to tweak the color

But something that scans my music and prompts me to buy MORE music from them, and generate a playlist? WOO HOO!

caedus

Meh, they need a new look for iTunes, it's getting on a bit. Also, as nice as Genius might be, there's no new music, unless you go through previewing on iTunes, so it's no Pandora. Not that we can even get Pandora in the bloody UK anyway.

Onouris

blah

caedus

Is it just me or is anyone else worried about security? I mean, uploading information about your entire library to iTunes? Couldn't that information be seized by the MPAA/RIAA or something to try to elicit information about file sharers? And not to mention the whole that it leaves in the program. I do not like this idea at all and I really hope that Apple turns it off by default or makes it easy for me to turn it off.

Dave S.

Nope, now it's 8

scogle

Apple site officially says "Download iTunes 8", but the link points to a page for 7.7.

scogle

@VakeroRokero:

Yeah, I am. Admittedly, I haven't run iTunes since the earlier v7 builds, but I just have terrible memories of the thing crashing left, right and center and barely being able to scroll through my library. I'm only running on two gigs, are you running more, maybe?

Zennalathas

You would think with ba-zillion ipods and iphones that they have sold they would put a little more effort into making some rock solid software. But it seems this is not the case. Frankly, I'm tired of waiting. I would have to agree with Bachya. I think I'm going to switch to Songbird and see how it fairs. They at least put some enthusiasm in their software.

drugshovel

@Zennalathas: I got a 820GB collection and everything moves pretty fast, are you using vista 32?

VakeroRokero

@ aparsons. I agree on the lack of monitored folders, lame! Managing your own music is already in iTunes. Go to: iTunes->Preferences->Advanced. Then uncheck the two boxes that say "Keep iTunes music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library." It's that easy.

ahsrubbery

Its available for download right now.

jharris0221

Do people really browse their music by album cover? Apple really seems to push that with cover flow and the grid. With digital music, I just don't pay attention to the cover art enough to be able to browse my music that way.

BethanyBoo

hopefully the itunes 8 Vista 64 edition will also be released at the same time.

I just jumped from xp and it's lightning fast, almost as fast as the osx itunes.

VakeroRokero

How's the memory hog work in Vista?

The last time I bothered with iTunes it'd crash as I scrolled through my 250gig library... I'd love to get away from WMP11 because of it's bad compatibility with ID3v2.4 tags, but Songbird is just a little bit still on the memory hog side for me. I like things to run smooth; is that too much to ask of software?

Zennalathas

hmmmm. I'm a little tired of the look and feel of itunes. Time for a refreshed look also... And hurry up on the iphone support Songbird!

brookenovak

Please iTunes: let me manage my own music. If you can't do that, then at least monitor a folder and auto-add it to the library. Until itunes adds that feature, I refuse to use it.

aparsons

I mean, the Genius Bar thing is neat-sounding ... but that's it? That's all the next major iteration of iTunes has to offer? This ranks right up there with Gmail and GCal remaining in beta for the last billion years.

I swear, as soon as the gtkpod people figure out how to work with the iPod touch, I'm leaving iTunes for Songbird.

bachya

I was really hoping for some new visualizations. The Genius thing is useless to me. I'll create my own play lists or listen to Pandora on my iPhone. Frankly, I hate iTunes and only use it because I have to for the iPhone, I use EphPod to fill my iPod.

billc124

downloaded without problem, but it was slow. for those wondering, the genius feature asks if you want to turn it on, and it does tell you that it will send your music info to apple.

tjmage1

@aparsons: For a bunch of them, google for Teridons iTunes Scripts

For what I have, you have to install the Itunes Library Updater and create a profile (check 'add new media', 'search in subdirectories','clean orphaned files').

Then make a bat file that points to your profile. Here is mine to modify.

"C:\Program Files\iTunes Library Updater\ITLUconsole.exe" /p:"c:\josh\scripts\josh.itlu"

This way, you can either import them to itunes by just dragging on it and have itunes import into the library, or just put them in your music folder and run this script and it will add/remove as needed.

caedus

Damn, why did they have to go and get rid of the List + Album Cover view? That's the only view I actually found useful. The plain List View is a bit overwhelming, while Cover Flow and Grid are just eye candy. The List/Album combo provided a nice balance and helped to divide up the tracks nicely.

I never get why software updates have to *reduce* the number of features, especially features that, you know, work. And are useful. Was it really that hard to have four buttons in the menu bar instead of three?

Jordan117

I've tried Genius now and I like it. I like the thumbnails too. Nice additions.

Henry94

Bob Dylan is for the win. Also, I'll try this out.

TheGreyFox

Not super impressed. The Nano looks like quite an improvement, but the Classic, Touch and iTunes are all yawnable. Maybe Apple has just spoiled us too much in the past, but we were kind of expecting a bit more of an advance than just a bigger HD (Classic), lower-but-still-too-high price (Touch), and a "feature" that is basically a way to advertise more music to us (Genius).

@tasselhoff76:
I was also taken aback by how much the Zunes are catching up to the iPods(in technology terms, certainly not in percentage of the market).

@forpeterssake:
Agreed. They collect just as much info on their customers, but no one will dare say anything bad about the benevolent Apple. And if someone does, they are dismissed as a Microsoft fanboy. Personally, I'm a fan of Sandisk's Sansa line, which kind of makes me a leper.

Brad N.

@bachya: Sorry to be the devil's advocate but Microsoft came up with the Genius-type idea for the zune first.

Planning to get a 120GB Zune for $250. YAY!!!!!

The-Joker

I create all my own playlists anyway, I don't see this being a real "great" feature. Plus smart playlists do a 10x better job finding the genres and ratings that I like.

As for the grid view, isn't this something like EVERY other music player has offered for several years? I've been using WMP since I gave up winamp about 3 years ago. There's so many view options it's great!

agroom

Does genius add another background service? Are there still THREE+ background services running just in case you happen to start owning an ipod / iphone? Does it re-enable the services if you disable them? Does it still get its grubby little paws in outlook whether you want it to or not?

johnsmith1234

New features I wanted - Did I get it?
Make it faster, less resources - no...

brownsin07

Oh, wow, thanks a lot for pointing that out, Weirdsmobile. I had been going off a story from yesterday that implied the old view had been replaced. Glad to see it's still in there!

Jordan117

so genius playlist is ...simillar to what pandora or last fm radio ???

redace

@billc124:
There is a new visualizer-pretty cool actually.

dogcow

Looks like the "Genius" only knows about songs that are for sale in iTunes. So I can't make a "Genius" playlist around AC/DC or the Beatles. As Dwight Schrute would say, "F."

CSHokie

The Genius playlist sounds good to me, because I'm one of those losers who hoards massive amounts of music but never listens to it. If it works as advertised, I'm hoping it'll introduce me to some terrific new music in my own bloated library.

Weirdsmobile

@Jordan117: List + Cover view is there -- you toggle it on from the View menu while in List view.

Weirdsmobile

i have to agree that itunes 8 is pretty yawnable. i was hoping for a UI refresh of some sort. i still havent tested genius out yet as i have over 24,000 songs in my library and it is taking forever to "gather information about my library." i doubt i will use it though. The new ipod nanos are cool i guess--nothing groundbreaking. i was really excited about today but now "meh"...

tmiranda

Itunes is bloated, and I never was a fan of it.

Foobar2000 is simple, clean, open source, and very low disk space usage.

I have used the Zune software, and at least in there it can watch a folder and auto-add music. Itunes can't even do that? Hahah.

rdn98

Genius huh? That is a pretty bold statement.

BTW ...there will never be a day I allow a computer program to decide my listening play list.

It is probably a good choice for the casual top 40 music person

mysticgeek.htg

oh, and you can't "turn off links to iTunes store" anymore. At least, they're showing up and I can't find the ticky-box to turn them off. Apple are REALLY pushing the store with i8, I guess competition from Amazon et al are forcing them to market it more aggressively.

Al Iguana

@Brad N.: I agree with you and forpeterssake. If Apple offered anything that I thought was "way more amazing" than other companies' offerings, it would be easier for them to impress me. Unfortunately, in my experience, each new device or software update that Apple brings to the table has just as many cons as pros, and no fewer bugs or limitations than any other company's similar product. Even with releases that are ahead of the curve, doing something first (and with the most publicity) is not the same as doing it best, or better.

And how about Creative's Zen line?

trachean

Is there a plugin for foobar that does the same thing as Genius?

owens

Am playing with it now, waiting for "Genius" to finish with my Library.

holdemm

@Weirdsmobile: soo...you'll have MORE music you dont listen to?

caedus

Does it let you bulk edit tags for TV Shows, movies and other video files? That's the most frustrating aspect of the program to me. I rely on iTunes for my AppleTV, so manually editing files or using a 3rd party app to do so is really time consuming.

somecallmechief

Hmm...let me see...bloated software, limited interesting feature creep, very likely a forced upgrade coming down the pike...Yikes! It's the Redmondization of Apple!

This revision of iTunes looks like a yawner.

yagameister

@Zennalathas: try foobar2k it manages my 120gigs of music without any problems it understands ID3v2.4 tags and it is very customable

Michse

href="#c7677109">rdn98:

agreed. seriously, no folder watch? how long have we itunes users been screaming for that. Windows media player has had it for YEARS. come on apple.

tmiranda

Grid view? That seems so basic, it should have been implemented a long time ago. I hate to admit it, but Windows Media Player 11 is more interesting, in terms of browsing and displaying your collection.

greenbot

Genius is also producing some interesting selections - not so predictable that I would have made them as playlists but songs that work well together and I would listen to together.

Impressed and highly likely to use it more...

inbetweener

@Jordan117: Er, the list plus album cover view is still there... as far as I can tell anyway...

Nice improvement, though folder monitoring is what I REALLY want.

I love the new visualisations too...

inbetweener

Looks more like a point release (i.e., 7.8) to me, not sure what deems it a major release, unless there are things going on under the hood, we're not aware of.

purduepete

@trachean:

Creative hit their peak with the plain Zen model (the one with the 2.5" screen and SD card support). The recent Mozaic and Wi-fi players are disappointing. I've always really wanted to love Creative players, but every single one of their flash-memory models has been plagued with firmware problems.

Brad N.

My new version of iTunes is called DRM-less tunes from Amazon and Foobar2000.

OX4

The genius feature almost had me installing iTunes to give it a try, because this is a feature i've hoped for for some time now. But after doing a little reading on iTunes 8, I am having serious doubts about it privacy. Some articles are claiming it sends an unique identifying number with its data to the apple mothership, such as this article: [www.mcelhearn.com] .

Does anyone know of a good playlist generator for winamp or other media players? Or even a stand-alone generator which can creat .m3u playlist?

cryptomega

The genre tab under the new grid view is nice, all the common genres have a new graphic and you are able to play all of one genre at once.

I love cover art, so I have always liked cover flow and I think that I will like grid view too

endgame47

now a waiting period of uner a week for a wonderfully coded QuickPwn from the dev team and WE'LL ALL BE SET :)

splitkooks

ITunes is OK, for heavy customization and good features, JRiver has worked well for me. Sometimes I think ITunes is too simple for it's own good, but I can't say anything, i'll be downloading it soon.

ChainsawFacelift

Apple is the new evil empire. Check your settings if you installed iTunes 8. I discovered that One-click ordering from the Music store was suddenly enabled after I installed it. I've never enabled it and always steer clear of such systems. I wonder how many people will discover that little gem, the hard way.

BTW: Enable Genius, had a quick look, disabled it again. Totally pointless.

New visualizer's nice but that hardly justifies a full version increment.

In summary, I'm underwhelmed by the new version a, frankly, pissed off with Apple's cavalier attitude to my existing settings. Oh, and in the best MS style of interface change for interface changes sake, I can no longer find out how to switch off the Genre browser or configure CD burning.

Fras

I'm all for sending personal information to an unlimited amount of companies for frivolous reasons in the name of music, but will the Windows version have a smaller memory footprint?

And ditto folder watching. I have hundreds of duplicates of songs in my iTunes library due to having to manually add folders after getting new music.

Webran61

Maybe I missed the boat, but has the ability to configure Podcast download settings -- per podcast -- been available?

If so, please load a gun for me.

If not, that's really freaking sweet cuz I've been waiting for it.

greatodinsraven

Oh and for those that are interested Local.FM uses last.fm to create Genius-like playlists of your own music.

[www.last.fm]

MattHall

If anyone has the skills to help with cracking the new Apple hashing algorithm so us iPhone/iPod Touch users can use other applications to sync our music, you can contribute here: [bluwiki.com]

MattHall

The article I linked to above is a bit old, Im not sure if apple fixed this or not. Anybody have a more recent article?

cryptomega

@rockonfred: Amarok is probably the greatest media player out there. But last time I used it alongside my iPod, the iPod completely crapped out (entire system wipe, took FOREVER to restore), so I use iTunes for the sole purpose of keeping my iPod updated.

Eschguy

damn itunes is holding steady at 487mb

osnofla

Hmm, I mean, I'm not running the greatest computer and I have never checked it before, but when did iTunes start using 500,000-600,000K?

I wish I could use something else, but alas, I am a pawn to Apple and use it to sync my iphone...blast.

DavidKaplan

Another Songbird convert here. I like Songbird so much that I'm trying to figure out how to write an add-on for it in my spare time. It is also why I have not yet bought an iPod. I'd like a little more freedom with my music, thank you. Anyone got any suggestions on a really good MP3 player that doesn't lock you down and that works with Linux, or even just Ubuntu?

carleeto

Amazing recommendations so far. Is there a shortcut to toggle Genius sidebar?

I wish they would enable radio to subscribe to streaming feeds and share beyond local network if password protected...

jp.rider63

what is the limit of Gigs that Vista 32 can handle? and recognize under the Hood? i am running 2 Gigs on my laptop and would like to upgrade to 3 or 4 gigs but i was told Vista 32 only recognize 3 Gigs not 4. true or false? thanks

Benitocarmona

@MattHall: Thanks for the link, checking it out now!

I also found MusicIP Mix has plugins available for winamp and WMP

cryptomega

iTunes 8 really is just increasing my dislike of Apple. Now you can't remove the iTunes store links, and iTunes now has a huge memory footprint, it was big before, but now it's huge (why is it currently using 370MB?). I have a new PC so I may still run iTunes 8 for it if there is a way to remove the store links but for my older computers I don't think I'll make the "upgrade".
BTW, Anyone know how to remove the store links on a PC?

CyberG4

Yeah, I gotta say, this is all well and good, but Microsoft is ahead with a lot of this stuff. Anyone with a Zune has seen this. The "iPhoto-like" is really the "Zune-like" grid-view. Watched folders, handheld tagging, FM tuner, wireless syncs and transfers, come on Steve. For once in your life, catch up!

the_Sleepwalker

Bah! Stupid little button at the bottom; looks exactly like the old mini-store button. I guess the mini-store is no more?

The Amazing Ant

@Benitocarmona: It's about 3.5
In SP1 they put something in there so it'll tell you you have 4, but it can only use that 3.5ish of it. Anything above that can't be used in 32 bit, so you end up with half a gig doing nothing.

Anyone else notice you can't leave Genius enabled and get the sidebar to go away?

The Amazing Ant

Been waiting since 1:20 for the Genius to finish with my Library. Damn this is taking lonh.

holdemm

@spidermedic: They could simply be updating the database to determine which songs go together. They probably find what songs are missing locally, which means Apple doesn't have to know which ones you do and don't have.

jp.rider63

"If you're concerned about Apple snagging all your listening habits with the Genius sidebar-well, you're partially right. Apple is collecting stats to improve the smarts of their Genius, but it's all anonymous."

Soooo, they're snagging my info so that that can recommend music to ME and tell ME what songs I need to complete an album, but it's anonymous. Riiiiiiiiight.

Based on the lackluster number of "innovations" and the unenthusiastic reviews here, methinks I'll stick with my current version. Damn, the only reason I have it and have a windows box (a junk laptop) is because of my stupid iphone.

Honestly I was hoping for an i-lag-phone update today as well as the iTunes. I was going to use it as the decision point on whether to keep it or sell it. Going...going...

spidermedic

Everyone here realizes that Apple is now actively trying to stop 3rd party software from interoperating with iPods (i.e. adding and removing music), right? If you haven't heard about it, google for itunesdb hash.

Granted, we won the first battle, but keep it in mind when deciding which digital music player you want to buy.

nighttimestereo

Genius seems neat. Don't need the sidebar links to the store. All the complaints here are either wrong ("there's no combined list/album cover view") or petty ("too much RAM!"--I'm at 60MB here). Oh well, I guess it's cool to hate on Apple now.

Rhywun

The feckers, unless I've missed a trick they've removed the browse function? I used the view that was replaced by grid and had the browse bar constantly on, iTunes 8 has just wrecked the way I play my music by trying to be cool, come on!
It's okay though cos I downgraded to 7 and whilst I had been looking at buying a revamped iPod Classic (thus requiring 8), I'm gonna keep hold of my money and hope that the Zune gets a Mac release!

tagscuderia

I'm not too interested in updating but the only reason I have iTunes is to upload music, video, and audiobooks to my iPhone. Is there an alternative? I know that the feature is built-in to Winamp Pro but if I were to drag .m4b files over to my iPhone would it display them correctly on my iPhone? Kinda sounds like a stupid question now that I look at it but I'll just hit submit instead of delete.

Cyphon

Been waiting for a few hours for the Genius to finish analyzing my library...it's about 75% of the way there now.

Anybody hear the latest rumors on a 64gb ipod touch? I need one!

myopicview

If iTunes coule help you copy music from iPod back to computer. I would be so happy.

maccolar

@Rhywun:

You're right...saying Apple has designed a platform that hogs ram IS petty. What were we all thinking? Of course we should just suck it up and let a program famous for memory leaks and grossly pathetic library management take up a bulk of our computers' resources. It's not like we were trying to use them for anything else anyway.

Where are you getting this 60MB business from anyway? Are you running it on a mac? My installation ran upwards of 100MB BEFORE I loaded my library up...

WMP11 runs at 30MB with over 250GB of music in the library on my computer, and similarly on my roomate's laptop... Any way that you look at it, Apple is still releasing a freakishly bloated program for what it does.

Zennalathas

I'm sticking with 7 for the moment. While the new Genius feature sounds cool, it seems that iTunes 8 is nothing more than a useless upgrade.

I'd also like to see Apple implement a folder monitoring feature for iTunes. It sucks that I have to manually add songs to my iTunes library everytime I add new songs to my music folder--which resides in another drive.

I swear that Musikcube is one of the reasons that I regret my switch to a Mac...

maob

I smell failsauce. I can't get it to play more than one album in the new thumbs view, which in some cases for me is one song... Which is quite a far cry from the endless shuffle I always use in Cover Flow view. The genius sidebar is unneccesary, as was the mini-store introduced with 7.x, and the genius feature itself is utter fail for me. The best it can do is group similar genres and (barely) similar artists - regardless of the fact that some artists do play songs of various moods, beats, etc... Lumping in Crooked Teeth by DCFC with Sovay by Andrew Bird isn't cool.

bjacobel

Contrary to what most have said (and a good number of those before they've even seen iTunes 8), the Genius playlist capability is a very nice feature and something I know I'll get a good use of. I almost always play music in Shuffle mode, but often want to hear a specific "mood" of music. My tastes are far from Top 40 so I sampled it with an obscure artist and received an excellent playlist that matched very well.

The updated iTunes isn't everything I was hoping for, but - in my opinion - the complaints that Genius is a inaccurate throw-away feature aren't valid.

wasteyourdays

Goodbye iTunes! Hello MediaMonkey!

gpzbc

Also, is it me or is Apple trying to make a bid on copyright control over the word "Genius" ?

callingshotgun

Genius is fun, except that if you're not using the latest model ipod, you can't select a song from the ipod itself to have Genius generate a playlist. It has to be one of the songs on your hard drive. Kind of irritating if you bring the ipod back and forth to work.

callingshotgun

I am really bugged of this half yearly apple's celebration and surprise!!! We have new upgraded products marketing tactic to make us spend our disposable income again and again.

attherate

I'll second the "meh".

dirtysteak

i just remembered why i kept itunes: it is the only player that i know of that responds to the forward and backward buttons on my mouse

osnofla

The only feature I really like about iTunes 8 is the new visualizer. Otherwise, I am choosing to pass on iTunes 8 for now.

thecrimsonalchemist2

Really not that big of a footprint only 186 here. Not amazing but not shocking.

FotoVerite

@cryptomega: Winamp already comes with this feature, right click a song and press play songs similar to "insert song name here" it analyzes your media collection and is just wonderful, uses Gracenote's DB to generate playlists which is kind of a downside, but it gets the job done quickly.

mikelcal

@attherate:

As an Apple shareholder, I count on them doing so on a periodic basic.

mpantone

@Fras: I'm with you 100% on the missing settings options. The genre column in the browser is pointless and obtrusive. I feel like an idiot for installing this. Thanks, apple.

ogradybt

@Zennalathas: Kinda zippy if you ask me. I'm running an AMD 4800 X2 with 2gb of ram. Although, it keeps giving me issues with backing up my iPhone though...

bdragonmsl

@h4nn4h: okay, it's worse than that: I get skipping every time I switch between tabs in firefox, or even scroll down a page...I'm afraid I'm going to have to downgrade, which is okay, because the only thing I like about this new release is the grid view, and I can live without that.

h4nn4h

My main complaint is that I can't seem to activate Genius without an itunes store account, which I can't get because I don't have a creditcard. There's a reason why I didn't have an itunes store account before: I'll probably never buy music downloads, I buy cds...so this seems pretty stupid to me.

The higher memory usage is also a real problem, not just a petty complaint, at least for people using older computers, like me. I sometimes hear skipping again when switching between programs, just like with itunes 7 before I added more RAM memory.

h4nn4h

So.. Apple gets to see all the people who refuse to drag n drop their music to their ipod, and are intent on using Libraries?

What an utter waste of time.

Bryan

Banshee has had this Genius sidebar since before it hit version 1.0. It recommendeds artists based on the song you are currently listening to, but it syncs with Last FM, not iTunes. I'm thinking this is just another way to sneak in the iTunes store into a music player that should be just that - a music player.

jeejum

@Benitocarmona: 3.2 gigs for vista 32 bit.

smackswell

@Onouris: You can get Last.FM, pretty much does the same as Pandora.

Vestan_Pance

I seem to be one of the few that still like iTunes, but except for some iPhone improvements (faster backup!) - I fail to see why this became version 8 instead of 7.8 - the genius thing could be nice but haven't used it enough to really check. Minor upgrade imho - nothing to make such a fuzz about, certainly all the hate here is a bit misplaced :) If you don't like iTunes - don't use it. And don't buy an iPod or iPhone.

KoFFiE

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Can't turn off Genre. HATE.

bobba

Wait... apple's latest thing is pandora(which has been around for years) for itunes? ....riiiiiight.

Man am I glad I don't have that software...

Ajh

I DO use album art to navigate my music. I find it tiresome to read endless lists of small text when looking for music so browsing visually feels much more intuitive. So I welcome the more visual browsing options of iTunes 8.

As for Genius, it seems to be more like a marketing tool for apple to analyze people's listening habits than a tool for people to rediscover the music they already have.

Contrary to last.fm, you won't get introduced to new music unless you buy it first.

And that's what seems to be Genius' secondary goal: provide links to the iTunes store everywhere throughout iTunes. You can even right-click a playlist and then BUY the music you already have as a gift for someone...

And unlike iTunes 7, the "display links to iTunes store" checkbox is now gone.

All in all I can only conclude that iTunes has become a monitoring tool with "buy now" buttons wherever you look.

little computer freund

@Alaska Jack: I've thought about doing something like this before just by making a folder called "Tags" (or something) and then just simply creating a playlist in that folder for each tag. Then, just drag and drop songs to a tag. Then, whenever you want to aggregate multiple tags on a playlist, you could make a smart playlist to include the "tag" playlists you want. Is that close to what you're after?

jdog1016

@aparsons: +1 to "monitor a folder and auto-add it to the library".

Does anybody know whether the Genius playlists work on older ipods like the previously fabulous ipod video?

dylan_k

Hm, Genius Playlists? Sounds an awful lot like the last.fm playlist in Amarok does that

trstn

@Jordan117: That is precisely my complaint. Grid view is crap if you are a heavy podcast listener. Click the podcast, then click to open the list of episodes, then click the episode? WTF? Thanks for making it harder to actually listen to podcasts, that's so helpful.

revmatty

I did a filemon watch on iTunes 7-something... and then uninstalled iTunes with confidence (switched to Media Monkey... love it). Anyone out there care to check out iTunes 8 with filemon, tell us what you see? Scanning all drives every 10 seconds, for no reason?

savvy999

the thing with the "watched folder" is, that iTunes already has a watched folder. Whenever you buy something or rip something it goes into that folder. Apple's attitude seems to me: if you buy from us or rip using our software, we'll look after you. If you buy from elsewhere or rip using other software, that's your problem. Which, personally, I think is fair enough. I don't think it's too hard to drag/drop a recently ripped folder into iTunes.

What I WOULD like is: age ratings for music (parental advisory, same as the movies). Stop using Quicktime as a backend on Windows, use DirectX. Merge all those "portable" processes and iTunes helpers into one iTunes process. What's the point of running 5 processes unless they are designed that way with the intention of them being independent, and by association, optional?

Genius is party-shuffle with built-in store. I know what I like, I don't need Apple to "suggest" stuff.

Al Iguana

@Zennalathas: Yes, running on Mac. Installed v8. Activated Genius. Took about 45 mins with 12,000 tracks. Check RAM, was pretty high at around 600MB. Quit iTunes. Relaunched - steady at 60MB. Maybe there's a leak in there which can be addressed with a patch; but this incessant whining about RAM is just ridiculous. If you know your computer can't handle new software, DON'T INSTALL IT. It's that easy. Otherwise there's no excuse to leave extra RAM sitting around unused. And bitching that this or that crappy freeware is "better" is also pointless. I've tried them all (on my Vista machine) and they all suck.

Rhywun

@Al Iguana: Nah, that is where you are wrong. Try buying an iTunes song on a different computer (laptop)and then adding it to your main library (on your desktop)at a later time. Does it monitor and add it? Nope! And I bought it on iTunes.

gpzbc

Well, even though I despised iTunes 7x (Windows), I figured that I can't knock it unless I try it. In brief:
My huge gripe with 7x was coverflow being gimmicky at best when handling anything more than a modest collection. You could cache the whole list for smooth scrolling each time you wanted to jump from one end to another, but the cache for my 900 albums (moderate by some standards)approached 1 gig. Not exactly ideal even on a 3 gig machine, considering Vista and the other demands.
The thumbnail browsing, while nothing revolutionary, is a GREAT compromise. It gives a tactile, 'old-school' feel to browsing a real album collection without the resource punishment and time consumption of coverflow.
As far as 'Genius,' meh. It's cool, I suppose. But it's nothing that smart playlists can't do better. All that's required of the latter is a little input from the user and properly tagged files.
ITunes still - STILL - performs terribly when doing the ONE thing it purports to do: Playing music. When one track ends and another begins, my entire rig will slam shut for that second or two. That doesn't sound like a big deal, unless you are scrolling, opening a file, typing a sentence, etc. It. Just. Stops. This has been an issue for me on multiple computers. Also, a simple thing like crossfading (an installed feature, not a plugin) causes stuttering or skipping in tracks.
And why, Apple - WHY does my player still consume 40-50% of my processor? Sure, it's a lowly 1.7 single core, but it ain't a 486, either. Playing tunes in the background should NOT cause the rest of my work to suffer even the slightest bit.

I would totally abandon iTunes but for two things: Smart playlists and the seamless interaction with my iPod. I have tried every other option (including MediaMonkey, which I use for tags and actual playing of files), but there is ALWAYS some error(s) with the sync. It's never as flawless as it is with iTunes. Therefore, the software and all of its devilish henchmen processes will always live on this and any other computer I will own. I just really, really wanted iTunes to just farking work, this time. I also wanted a 64GB Touch to be announced today, but that didn't happen, either :(

Bottom line - iTunes 8.0 IS an improvement over 7x. But given how eight-cylinder evil 7x was, that's not saying much.
Note - I don't use iTunes store, so no comment there.

nolabar10der

@attherate:

You're bugged that a for-profit company markets their products in such a way that makes people want to buy them? Welcome to capitalism. You're a little late to the party, but here's a drink.

Seriously, what do you expect them to do? Stop selling things, stop making new products? Close up shop?

Here's the good news. You DON'T have to buy everything they make. Read that sentence again. If you just bought the last iPod but the new iPod just looks soooooo cool and you just have to have it, then it's no one's fault buy your own. You have no right to complain.

Vertigo50

@revmatty:

Good point. Now, have you considered turning off the grid view for Podcasts? :)

Problem solved, whining over.

Vertigo50

@Alaska Jack:

You can do the tagging you're talking about, just a slightly different way.

Put the main Genre in the genre tag (blues), then in the Comments tag, put all the other tags you want: mellow guitar folk, etc.

Then, you can create smart playlists based on one or more of these tags. You could create a smart playlist that includes all songs with the tags "mellow" and "guitar", or add a line that ignores all songs with these two tags that have the genre "pop", or whatever.

You won't necessarily be able to find all these on your iPod without creating the playlists, but seriously, if there are things you always want to find, just create a bunch of different playlists for them.

As for tagging more quickly, select all the songs you want to have a certain tag, open the Info box, go to the comments field and type it in. It's not perfect, but it works.

Plus, if you use something like textexpander, you can set up shortcuts for the tags and make it go faster.

Vertigo50

The only thing I don't like is that you need an Itunes account to use the Genius thing. I also wish that they changed all those other views that aren't the grid to the new gray color scheme thing, or at least an option to do that.

weirdalfan27

I still think Zune is better.

georgexu316

On Windows I had my share of problems with iTunes, but now that I've made the move to Mac, I have yet to encounter my computer even slowing down.

NikP

The worst piece of bloatware ever written. Genius list? Man, how about just running without taking 100 mbs of my ram! I'd be happy with that. I've never understood why Mac Fan Boyz rave all blue in the face about it. I'd say, scale back that code, write something that doesn't need 100 mbs of ram to play a song, and maybe give us some choice of skins. I can't wait for Zune to really start kicking their butts. You just want to see Steve Jobs with egg on his chin. There's something too smug about that dork.

philosopher_dog

Should have been called iTunes 7.5.

ICEBreaker

I gave iTunes 8 a whirl last night, especially to check out the Genius playlists.

iTunes 8 unfortunately suffers from the same problems its predecessors suffer from. It's slow, and unfit for handling large music collections. It also tends not to recognize all the metadata and album art that are in my music.

My biggest complaint about iTunes remains the same, however. iTunes wants to take control of your music, instead of giving you power to control your music.

As for new features to iTunes 8...

Much of what the Genius playlists accomplish I can accomplish by simply playing randomly within a single genre in Winamp or Mediamonkey. Maybe this feature will get better in time, but *even if* this feature worked as well or better than Pandora's version of it, I still have issues with the completely unnecessary iTunes store links.

The album view feels unintuitive and clunky, especially since you don't see the list of songs within an album, it just says, "Playing Album". Unfortunately, the album view only allows you to sort by "Alphabetical order of albums" and not by other parameters. Winamp has had album view functionality for quite some time now, and allows you to sort by anything you want.

iTunes 8 is useful for two things: if you have a small music library ( < 2000 songs), or if you want to set up a music station at a party (because most people know how to use it). Otherwise, I highly recommend the extended managing capabilities of either Winamp or Mediamonkey.

Kashell

Never mind Genius, what about the stuff they've taken away? - i.e. the shuffle slider. V annoying

mlardner

wheres my damed comments!

eugene73

"hey probably find what songs are missing locally, which means Apple doesn't have to know which ones you do and don't have."

huh? if they know what you dont have they know what you have, pretty much.

eugene73

"Does anyone know of a good playlist generator for winamp or other media players?"

It was mentioned mentioned in the article. The Filter does this for Winamp( not sure how to link but the main article has a link)

eugene73

I like the genius. Took a little while to load its stuff but I'm already jamming to rocks I wouldn't have even thought of selecting. Never had any of the problems some of the other posters talk about. Mostly just like its smooth, fast, easy, slick, helpful interface. Hmmm... maybe just sour grapes they didn't write this program!

cbrevard

I've also figured out how to play with the artwork for the Genre. Posted a blog entry at http://id8tion.com/cmykthoughts/2008/09/10/i-hacked-itunes-genre-images-and-so-can-you/

SonaliHammer

The new visualizer looks nice, but you can't adjust settings on it. The adjust option is greyed-out unless you select 'classic' visualizer.

sholcroft

@trachean: I have a Creative Zen Micro with 1 GB of space and it's absolutely great. Who really needs to carry around their entire music library with them? I load it up with the twenty newest songs that I feel like hearing that day and then go about my business.

And it doubles as a flash drive without any plugins or software. Dope.

FMchubs

Great, another major rev without solving the problem of having to drag a playlist up 17 screens to drop it into your ipod. All they have to do is spit the playlist window and the problem goes away. They should figure by now that a large number of people have more media then they can keep on a 120gig player, the therefore cannot just let it sync on its own. I could care less about magic playlists; give me a better interface, or preferably a native Linux client. Toymotorhead

WalterSatyr

For those of you looking for a way to remove the Genius playlist (like me, not that alert at this time of the day): it's at General preferences, under Show.

Ruud

I listen to mainly Asian artists, so Genius is pretty much useless to me. The day they add Wang Lee Hom or Clazziquai to the iTunes store is the day that I will actually USE the iTunes store.

SiPhuYoda

I wondered, does it still let you jailbreak just as before, or is there some more work to be done with it?

Jeketem

iTunes 8 seems to have dropped the ability to manage multiple libraries. In iTunes 7.x, holding sown the Option key on mac would allow you to choose (or create a new) library.

mpeachey

wow.... nice to see that iTunes has added so many of the features from Zune software!

alanyvr

I hope they are working on making this beast of a program more efficient. I remember the old, light-footed, fluffier itunes days....

agentsmyth

doesnt seem like that much of an improvment, I dont think that I will upgrade

redspectre