Cool Tool of the Week: iTunes Genius

I realize it’s Tuesday, a bit late for my Friday “Cool Tool of the Week” feature, but I’ve been laid up with a nasty sinus infection. Now I’m back in action and looking to unload a backlog of blog topics, starting with some guarded enthusiasm for the new iTunes Genius feature from Apple.

How it describes itself: “The new Genius feature in iTunes 8 creates the perfect playlist. Just select a song, click the Genius button, and iTunes generates a playlist of songs from your library that go great with it. Turn on the Genius sidebar and discover new music you’ll love. Preview and buy directly from the sidebar.”

How I’d describe it: As usual, Apple does a pretty good job of explaining itself, but I’ll add this: Genius is Apple’s attempt to co-opt the idea of music recommendation, which has helped sites like Pandora explode in popularity in recent years.

Getting started: If you’re a regular iTunes user, you’ve probably already noticed the addition of Genius when you upgraded to iTunes 8. If you haven’t fired up iTunes in a while, you should be prompted to upgrade for free. If you need to download it manually, click here.

Once you’ve installed iTunes 8, Apple gives you some pretty simple prompts to start using Genius. First, it’ll analyze your music collection (which can take a while if you got a Nick Hornby-esque stash of songs). Then, when you click on a song you like, you’ll see iTunes recommendations pop up on the right.

Even better, though, is the Genius playlist generator. When you have a song selected, click the atom-looking Genius icon at the bottom right of iTunes. It’ll create a playlist of similar songs, culled from your own music collection and based on similar tastes from other iTunes users.

Why you’ll use it: Chances are, you fall into one of two categories:

1. You’re just getting started with your digital musical collection. In this case, you’ll enjoy the recommendation feature in the Genius sidebar. Even if you don’t buy the songs from iTunes, you’ll know which bands to look for.

2. You have an MP3 collection so big, you’ve probably had to upgrade your hard drive twice just to contain it. This is me. I’m wary to buy any new music these days, because I couldn’t even tell you what’s on my 500 gig drive. For people like me, the Genius playlists are magical. I can pick a song that matches my mood, pick the number of tracks I want in the playlist, and fire it up. Plus, you can save each playlist for later.

Shortcomings: Apple is giving you the end result of social research without any real opportunity to be social. It would be nice if you could at least share your own playlists the way you can create book lists on Amazon. Also, I've noticed iTunes being quite a bit buggier than before the upgrade, and it's not rare to get the message that "“Genius is unavailable" for specific songs you click on.

In Summary: Genius is a wonderful addition to iTunes, although it’ll be a while before all the kinks are worked out. But if you’re looking for something a bit more social, be sure to check out blip.fm and Last.fm, two sites that let you compare musical tastes with real live humans. Or, you know, you could always go visit your local independent record store.