Saturday, October 10, 2009

iTunes "Genius" - Does It Live Up to the Hype?

Some time ago, Apple introduced Genius into one of the iTunes releases, a feature I suspected of "spying" on my listening habits and turned off immediately. Okay, I'm really not paranoid, but I wasn't convinced I should be inviting a "Genius" into my musical life.

Things changed. I purchased a MacBook Pro, my first Macintosh after being a PC snob for so many years, ignoring my wife's claim "If you go Mac, you won't go back." After building my iTunes library on my new toy, I decided to enable Genius.

Man, was I surprised! The first mix out of the box that Genius created was a winner for a couple of reasons. First, the songs all made sense for the theme. They segued nicely into each other and really established the mood. Second, and probably most interestingly, it chose songs I forgot I even had in my extensive library, including a number of B (and C and D) sides I never really listened to very much. I love new music - in fact, I go out of my way to listen to music I know I never liked before just to give it yet another chance. Genius is already helping me in that capacity without even having to download anything new!

What has been your experience with Genius? Are you a believer or a skeptic like I was?

Michael

Photo Credit, Johan Larsson

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