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Genius Feature Coming to Older iPod Classics

motulist said:
Regarding the 160 GB reduction to 120 GB, I strongly suspect that there's a 240 GB model that's going to be coming out very soon. The 240 GB toshiba drives weren't officially announced yet iirc, so Jobs wouldn't steal toshiba's thunder in the same way he loathes it when someone else does it to him. Now that the 240 GB drive are official, Jobs will announce a 240 GB iPod in a couple of weeks. Because it makes almost no sense to eliminate the larger iPod. It costs Apple virtually nothing to keep selling that extra model since they have another model they're still selling which uses 99% the same parts and design.

There will almost definitely be a 240 GB classic coming very shortly.
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I would love for that to happen... most likely in February along with a Touch bump.
But more likely we will see it at 120GB and 200GB.
Because if it's 120GB and 240GB, it would seem ridiculous because the 240GB would have literally 120GB more than the 120GB model.
 
I have a lot of Classical/jazz music that the Genius can't make a list for.

It's for mainstream people, honestly.

By "a lot" I mean 60% of my library.:mad:
 
bilbo--baggins said:
I suspect it has more to do with price, size of the average music library (only a minority use Apple Lossless, or have massive AAC/MP3 libraries).
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Well yeah, you'd have to be an oddball to have 160 GB worth of AAC/MP3, but you're forgetting video. If you're an avid collector of TV shows, you run up 160 GB in no time. The Simpsons is up to, what, over 400 episodes now? And then there's full length movies...

Since the fans of Classic 160 GB don't appear to care much about the size and weight, can't Apple solve this once and for all by building some sort of external storage for the iPod Touch? Some sort of contraption that's attached to the back of the iPod and docks with the port... a backpack... dock... backdock... whatever. I was thinking maybe two 80 GB drives and a battery so that it doesn't have to suck power from the iPod itself. You get a huge screen (compared to the stamp-sized one on the Classic, anyway) and it's 16:9, not 4:3. You even get a speaker (a crappy one, but still...)

I have no idea if such a setup would even work (transfer rates etc), but it would certainly take care of the storage dilemma once and for all. You could get the low-end 8 GB Touch and attach it to the monster storage. Apple will no longer have to bother with bumping up the storage capacity once in a while. Everybody wins.
 
Creibold said:
I have a lot of Classical/jazz music that the Genius can't make a list for.

It's for mainstream people, honestly.

By "a lot" I mean 60% of my library.:mad:
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I think in time as more data goes to the Genius cloud, Genius will do better with more types of music. You did enable it and allow it to send data on your music, didn't you? ;)

EDIT- I just tried a Charlie Parker song and it worked, although some other artists (Miles Davis) did not.
 
dex110 said:
I did a lot of playing around with the Genius playlist maker and have some examples of what it can do when it pulls from a huge song library- take a look at the examples as well as my more indepth review here:

http://adamdexter.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/how-good-is-itunes-genius-playlist-maker/
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Thanks! I can't comment on all the lists, but it is interesting that the 2 rap lists were different, and seemed to reflect the artists/songs (Wu-Tang members in the CREAM list...)
 
iParis said:
more likely we will see it at 120GB and 200GB.
Because if it's 120GB and 240GB, it would seem ridiculous because the 240GB would have literally 120GB more than the 120GB model.
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The storage capacity has never been a marketing decision, it's always simply been limited by the technology. IIRC, the largest drive made by any hard disk manufacturer that fits in the thinner ipod is 120 GB, and for the thicker size ipod the largest size hard drive that anyone is manufacturing just a couple of days ago went up to 240. Apple always sticks in the highest capacity drives that will fit. Apple isn't gonna artificially limit the maximum GB storage just so that people won't think the capacity gap is overly large between models.
 
Coming to the 5.5 gen video ipod?!

I realize its coming to the previous ipod classis...80 gb and 160 gb but what about the older models too?! I want them to release some software updates for the 5.5 gen. Please apple!!
 
Needs to be available in iTunes music store to work

Creibold said:
I have a lot of Classical/jazz music that the Genius can't make a list for.

It's for mainstream people, honestly.

By "a lot" I mean 60% of my library.:mad:
Click to expand...

From all my tests, it seems that in order for Genius to index the track and thus be able to generate a playlist for that track, the track artist needs to be available on the iTunes music store.

For example:
Try making a playlist from AC/DC or The Beatles, mainstream, but Genius says there is not enough data.
 
Thanks

madmaxmedia said:
Thanks! I can't comment on all the lists, but it is interesting that the 2 rap lists were different, and seemed to reflect the artists/songs (Wu-Tang members in the CREAM list...)
Click to expand...

Madmax- thanks for taking a look- yea, I found that really interesting, it seems that there was a lot of thought put into the Genius algorithm and it harnesses a lot of data to put the lists together. I just wish it had more options, like limiting repeating artists---
http://adamdexter.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/how-good-is-itunes-genius-playlist-maker/
 
iParis said:
I would love for that to happen... most likely in February along with a Touch bump.
But more likely we will see it at 120GB and 200GB.
Because if it's 120GB and 240GB, it would seem ridiculous because the 240GB would have literally 120GB more than the 120GB model.
Click to expand...

why would that be crazy? the classic line has routinely had the top of the line model. i bought my 4g 20gb when there was a 40gb model too. 5 had 30 & 60gb models and 5.5g had 40 & 80gb. and the original classics had 80 & 160gb. sure a 120gb gap between models sounds big, but a few years ago would we not think the same thing about 80gb between models?

honestly though, i don't see apple releasing a bigger hard drive in an ipod until they update the classic line again. there simply isn't enough demand for ipods with that much space.
 
Sarbanes Oxley

I think the interesting thing about this is that we might assume that Apple isn't as concerned with Sarbanes-Oxley as we might have thought. If they can give away a software update that adds a significant feature like Genius, maybe they were just interested in making money when they released the various iPod Touch updates.
 
Genius on older ipods

I have an ipod video. In itunes, you can create a genius playlist and you have the option to save the playlist. The genius playlist doesn't appear on the ipod, but the saved playlist does. I think this is pretty good even though the ipod itself won't generate the on-the-fly genius playlist.
 
t-pod user said:
I have an ipod video. In itunes, you can create a genius playlist and you have the option to save the playlist. The genius playlist doesn't appear on the ipod, but the saved playlist does. I think this is pretty good even though the ipod itself won't generate the on-the-fly genius playlist.
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That's a neat suprise-even if the video iPods don't get a on-iPod Genius function, saved playlists created with Genus might still be usuable.
 
more countries please

Waiting for Genius to come to my country. Apple still doesn't offer iTunes store in many EU countries.
 
NO GENIUS FOR IPOD CLASSIC 6th GEN!!!!

NEWS!!! CNET just updated their page (http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic/0,39029432,49298843,00.htm) about the new iPod classic:

Update: Apple gave us a call last night, and apparently the resident iPod 'expert' at the event the other day wasn't as much of an expert as we'd hoped. Apparently there aren't plans to offer a free Genius-enabling update to the original iPod classic. This was, by the way, the same expert who told us high-definition iTunes downloads would be supported by the new iPod classic -- something that turned out to be only vaguely accurate.

Sorry guys!
 
heads up said:
i'm actually surprised how well the genius feature works. i have a lot of artists that aren't available on the itunes store, but it still does a great job with them.
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I'm very impressed so far. I've been looking through my 5 star songs and clicking "genius" to see what it thinks is related. And I've found some songs I like that are on my iTunes that were accidentally unrated or 2 star - so I've boosted them back up. The recommendations don't seem too bad either.

Biggest problem is that sometimes it doesn't recognise an imported song as the same song as what they sell on iTunes. In that case it says it can't find a recommendation for that song... but the difference can be minor. Both examples I had are for my wife
* one was a movie soundtrack that didn't work while it was marked as a 'compilation' but recognised it perfectly when unchecked.
* the other was market as "easy listening" and iTunes Store sells it as "Vocal". I changed my import to Vocal and it worked great.

Both of these were originally imported and recognised by iTunes. I guess we need a way of manually telling iTunes that "this song on my iTunes is the same as that song you sell". It'd also help it find the cover art.
 
Hairball said:
Try changing the type of music you listen to and you might enjoy Genius a little more.
Click to expand...

I don't understand what you mean, changing the type of music I listen to. I never mentioned what type of music I listen to. I can't even do that because there is no way to describe all of it. Genres aren't applicable to my tastes. I couldn't pick just one (like "rock"...)

I have a very diverse music collection... :cool: Flogging Molly is just one example. I don't even listen to them very often. Lol. You think that's all I listen to?

I haven't even tried Genius yet, but its not something I'm terribly excited about. Neat, yes. Amazing, not really. I'd have to try it on my family desktop which only has my sister's music on it (which is not all that interesting, considering she's 12...) I won't be able to fully appreciate this feature until I buy my own MacBook and personalize it with my own music collection...
 
Anuba said:
It has to be music offered on iTunes, yeah, but it's not like their selection is mainstream only. There's lots of obscure stuff on there.
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Yeah, the selections are quite good.

On another note, it'd be interesting if you could listen to song #1, and when it finishes the genius picks the best match to song #1 as song #2. Then when that finishes, picks the best match to song #2 as song #3 etc. You'd get a slow transition through your library.
 
champ01 said:
if your song isnt a itunes one its useless
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Naturally on release of genius, there isn't any user submitted data. Apparently the recommendations used on day 1 are based on sales from the iTunes store, but that'll be replaced by user data.

That all makes sense - but what I haven't heard is whether everything we're seeing currently is based on iTunes store sales.
ie: When did (or when will) apple cut over their recommendations to user data?

If they haven't done it already, it'd explain why anything not on the store doesn't work. Of course, if for your unique song only 3 people who listen to that song have uploaded their data so far, it may not be enough to make recommendations yet.
 
GregA said:
I'm very impressed so far.
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Same here. Really impressed by this Genius functionality. It's even found recommendations for my Amiga OST rips :D
I don't like 1 genre either but so far it's done a stellar job at making good playlists.
 
Love the feature, however it to get started it is not straight forward. You have to go to Store >> Update Genius so it can scan your library which took some time.

Now when can I get this update for my nano???
 
In search of a better Genius

ThinkBrilliant said:
The Genius Feature is totally unpredictable when you get started. It won't get to know your tastes until you let it run for a few weeks. This can be more likened to Artificial Intelligence than a proprietary algorithmic solution that Apple developed. Or a nice combination of both.

But, the more you teach it, and let it work for you, the better it'll get. (like any good employee)
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That was my original expectation of Genius also, that it would work like Pandora. However, I have not yet seen a feature in which you teach it to finetune your playlists. Has anybody seen such a feature?
Also, I think it will be a test for Apple to see if it will only support music in the ITS to add to Genius playlists, or if it will support a broader spectrum.
As of now it only seems to support music that is available in the ITS. That could and should change as it gets access to the music libraries of all iTunes users. Lets pray they don't someday decide to capitalize on this data and sell it to the RCIAA.
 
ryan.stewie said:
NEWS!!! CNET just updated their page (http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic/0,39029432,49298843,00.htm) about the new iPod classic:

Update: Apple gave us a call last night, and apparently the resident iPod 'expert' at the event the other day wasn't as much of an expert as we'd hoped. Apparently there aren't plans to offer a free Genius-enabling update to the original iPod classic.

Sorry guys!
Click to expand...

Bugger! I hope this information is incorrect! Otherwise consider my positive vote to be a negative one.
 
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