…Okay so this is Pat, but a buddy of mine wanted to write an in-depth piece on the new iTunes 8. Before I post it though, I want to give a brief update of what happened:
iTunes 8 and
New iPod Nano (a variety of colors, posted below).
New array of iPod Nanos...I want the orange one
Updated iPod Touch complete with external volume control and external speakers. Also Update 2.1 now available.
External Volume Control was long awaited
iPod Classic now 120 GB.
iPod Classic is still a hit among consumers.
That’s a bit of an update, you can view the full Keynote here.
Also, the iPhone update is available today and can be found On Apple’s Website.
Now, for my friend’s in-depth article on iTunes 8:
iTunes 8
The Good. The Bad. And the Ugly
On September 9 Apple released a new version of iTunes, their eighth installment to the program. To many’s dismay Apple did not come out with a “lite” version of the program to satisfy those who complain about iTunes’ constantly growing size and computing requirements. However, even though iTunes’ size may be growing, it’s capabilities are being expanded as well.
So, on to the important stuff…..What’s new!?!
“Grid View”
New Grid View is an alternative to Cover Flow
- iTunes 8 has a new “view” for those of you who are tired of scrolling through your mountains of music just by name or looking at your albums in “cover flow”
- This new “Grid View” replaces the old album view button (which I personally found useless) Grid View allows you to browse through your albums by brushing over them with your mouse (those Mac users who are familiar with the new iPhoto will understand this). However, after playing around with this new view, it seems to be just as useless as the previous view. It’s difficult to “scroll” through your albums. The only place I found grid view to be semi-useful was in the movies and TV shows.
o The Review: Thumbs down
HD iTunes Store TV Shows
- Nothing super exciting here, but we all love High Definition as well as NBC which is back for download.
I love HD.
o The Review: Thumbs up!
New Visualizations
- Again nothing super exciting in this. Although Apple did make the visualizations “dance” to the beat of the currently playing song, which in my opinion makes it much more appealing to watch.
o The Review: Thumbs up!
Genius
Simply put; Genius is genius.
- This feature is by far the most exciting part of this update. For anyone familiar with the Internet service “Pandora” this feature will make complete sense. However for those who aren’t familiar with “Pandora” let me briefly explain Genius. This small service looks at all the music contained within your music library. After connecting to the iTunes servers it can then create completely new playlists based upon one song that you have selected. The songs contained within the playlist will be of similar melody and genre.
- In my opinion Genius is genius! I have always had trouble looking for songs similar to the one im currently listening to and this takes all the guess work out of it.
o The Review: Thumbs wayyyyy up!
I might not be a huge fan of every new “improvement within this iTunes version, but overall it was a good update. My only gripe is that Apple has still not added Airtunes support for movies! I mean come on Apple. But hey, don’t just take my word for it, go download it and find out for yourself.
