Yeah, I think it only works on songs that are in the iTunes Store. Or on a similar vein, songs that are named exactly as they are in the iTunes Store. (Similar to when you can't download album art for a certain song or album just because you tag it slightly differently than the store does.)
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Genius Feature Coming to Older iPod Classics
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Yeah, I think it only works on songs that are in the iTunes Store. Or on a similar vein, songs that are named exactly as they are in the iTunes Store. (Similar to when you can't download album art for a certain song or album just because you tag it slightly differently than the store does.)
I see. Thanks for clarification. That being the main feature this makes it more interesting. While it is neat and helpful, it would only be incredibly beneficial if one were to have a giant library of music.
I see. Glad to know its exandable since I never buy songs from iTunes. I probably won't bother to use this feature for several more weeks. It should be up and running smoothly by then.
Also, I'm a little OCD about naming my music so that it all fits together perfectly and everything is exact (for example, some bands have "the" in the title and sometimes its not on there if you download music from places other than iTunes so the songs with the artist as "the" and the ones without are two different artists...). For people who don't do this, they will probably be having trouble.
Thanks for pointing this out. Then my original point isn't completely void. Again, this part of the feature isn't too exciting. But thanks to everyone who helped clarify what exactly Genius does.
How about we rant about how could anyone listen to that much music? 120GB, at 256kb, can hold about 42 days of constant music.
Furthermore, why is it that 120GB is not enough but 160GB is? Is that just your own personal situation? Maybe others feel that 80 is not enough but 120 is. Or 160 is not enough but 240 is.
And why are you complaining, anyway? If you are on the road all the time and you need a 160GB iPod (and I think we ascertained based on the paragraph above that this is all about YOU), then you surely already have one.
And here's the bottom line. If you need to have all your music with you in a lossless format all the time, then one single iPod will never be the ultimate solution. Bring a laptop and external HD. Bring another iPod. Bring a briefcase full of ipods and external hard drives. Don't just expect that Apple would cater to your own elitist "I have lots of music, I need it with me all the time" attitude.
I am glad they are not leaving the older ipods out of the loop. Thank you apple!
My genius is still working, haven't had a chance to use it yet thou......
My genius is still working, haven't had a chance to use it yet thou......
I was just hoping they'd actually up the size of the Classic, not down-size it. I've gone from 80GB to 160GB and now I need more, due to my always growing music collection. I like to have all of my music with me always. I don't even have it at that high a bitrate; I just have that much music! True, it is a convenience thing (I don't have to change out the songs on my iPod every time, I can listen to anything on a whim), but it's almost a security thing too -- if my computer dies, I know I can get a program that allows me to rip music off of my iPod, and I still have everything.
I imagine the two platter iPods are more expensive to make, and if few were buying the two-platter iPod, their thinking could well have been, why bother?
Still, I am sad too
I call bogus
Apple can't add a free feature to older iPods without charging for it, according to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. You HAVE to realize the revenue in the quarter you earned it. If you deliver new features a year or so down the line, you are completing transactions that you realized revenue for long ago. Big accounting no-no.
That's why the iPod Touch updates cost money.
As for the 160 GB to 120 GB capacity drop... you're looking at it the wrong way. 160 GB 1.8" HDDs are much more expensive (they're using all the newest tech to cram that data into the form factor), and thus they weren't selling as well as Apple hoped. So they discontinued that model.
The 120 GB is an UPGRADE to the 80 GB model, and at the 80 GB price.
If you're so terribly upset, go buy out the existing stock of 160's.
Apple can't add a free feature to older iPods without charging for it, according to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. You HAVE to realize the revenue in the quarter you earned it. If you deliver new features a year or so down the line, you are completing transactions that you realized revenue for long ago. Big accounting no-no.
That's why the iPod Touch updates cost money.
As for the 160 GB to 120 GB capacity drop... you're looking at it the wrong way. 160 GB 1.8" HDDs are much more expensive (they're using all the newest tech to cram that data into the form factor), and thus they weren't selling as well as Apple hoped. So they discontinued that model.
The 120 GB is an UPGRADE to the 80 GB model, and at the 80 GB price.
If you're so terribly upset, go buy out the existing stock of 160's.
With that logic why bother having increases in any Laptop at all. You can always buy an external drive if you need it for your laptop. Yes I am in the minority and that is why there are many more pods like the touch and nano out in the world. I understand why they are best sellers.
I would have no problem if they charged a premium for a very large capacity iPod. Yes my collection keeps expanding and I would rather not carry a computer or several iPods. You'd have to juggle your collection over several which would be a pain.
My 160 is at capacity and I would love a 240. I know many people for who music is primary and who travel constantly and want to bring their full catalogues with them.
I don't put down those who can be satisfied with 1000 songs. If that works for them, then great.
I mean look at the Airbook. It is very thin and a crap more expensive for no more storage than a lesser Powerbook, but there are some who are willing to spend more for the sleekness. Again not for everyone but still an audience.
I would love genius on my 5.5gen iPod. It's funny you mention that too, because that white 30gb was my first Apple product.
What makes the reduction really infuriating, is Toshiba coming out with a 240GB the day after Apple screws the Classic.
*amn I'm tired of all this anorexic thin fixation Apple has.http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/10/toshiba-unveils-tiny-240-gb-hd
Well, I happen to be find the Genius feature very useful. I tested Genius last night with a variety of popular as well as obscure titles and I have to say it did a really good job. I have over 10,000 songs in my library and sometimes with so many choices of what to listen to, it is so much easier to choose 1 song that suits my mood and build a playlist of similar songs from that. I give it a thumbs up based on my experiences.
I'm with you. I was also wanting a larger classic. Right now I have an iPhone which satisfies my 'walk around' music and a classic that never leaves the car. My classic is full and I've had to start managing music on it which is a pain.
So the first part applies to people like you. But I'd also like to note about how iTunes is most likely only going to pick up on music that has perfectly entered information... At least, that's what I've had experience from when looking for album art and stuff.. Maybe with the fact that lots of different people will be entering in information, this may change. But I'm not sure.This is precisely my situation. I'm about 1 GB short of filling my 160 GB Classic, and have had to start deleting some of my larger, already enjoyed podcasts, just to save some space. I travel frequently (sometimes for as long as two weeks), and cannot store personal music files on my work laptop that I take with me. I have a huge, eclectic music collection mostly in lossless or 320 kbps mp3 format, and listen to tracks all over the place.
On another note, the Genius thing is excellent. I used it to create 20 playlists of 25 tracks each yesterday, based on varying genres and years, then saved them as individual playlists (G-01, G-02, etc). I'm loving the combinations of music it's come up with.
So, back to the original post. Please don't drop the large classic. There are still some of us that need that kind of capacity.
I have not seen Apple explain the mechanics of Genius anywhere yet, but I gathered that Genius does not actually make recommendations based on your tastes. Rather it swirls your tastes in with other iTunes users' tastes and pushes out the collective wisdom to everyone.
I am still not 100 percent sure what Genius is actually doing:
1. What is it uploading from individual users? Steve Jobs said in the keynote that it will take into account my ratings and play frequency, but is it analyzing individual playlists, how closely together in time I bought certain songs, songs I bought but did not play very frequently, etc.?
2. What does the Genius mother ship actually do -- assign something like a Myers-Briggs value to each track and then "teach" my iTunes the values of each track in my music library? Or does it a huge multi-variant database that compares every track to every other track, assigns a proximity value from each track to each other track, and then push down to individual users only the info it needs? (If the latter were the case, Genius would not work on a new song unless either you update Genius after the download or the download comes with a Genius update.) Also, the Genius lists that I have run are careful not to overload the same artists so it definitely considers other factors than assigned values.
In the couple of hours I tooled around with Genius last night, I was very impressed with the lists it produced and with how many songs it picked that were perfect for the list but that I had not heard in a while.
Also, iTunes 8 on Mac is a serious memory hog. With also-hoggy Firefox and a couple of other apps running, my 1.5 GB of memory was huffing and puffing at times.
I'm assuming that you're running multiple systems with 640 KB RAM - after all, that ought to be enough for anybody, right?
YES! Owners of older ipods rejoice! Steve Jobs is reaching down from the heavens that everyone has perched him upon and will be gracing all of you with his "genius playlist"
Only....
did you pay YOUR 9.95$ upgrade cost? No?
Too bad... so sad....
Only....
did you pay YOUR 9.95$ upgrade cost? No?
Too bad... so sad....
A: I'm so glad I bought the 160gig already
B: I'm so glad the firmware is going to make it genius-ified
B: I'm so glad the firmware is going to make it genius-ified
I doubt genius will come to the nano, they can easily update the old classic because it is the same as it was two days ago just a different hard drive size and will use the same interface as the old classics, the new touch has a new interface and look - they may not feel the need to change the nano 3g's firmware