Nonetheless, the idea behind Genius is that it scans your library, and then whenever you click on the genius button (the symbol for an atom), it will build you a playlist based on that song. They have finally decided to join the ranks of Last.fm and Pandora. Their recommendations are more like Last.fm's, because it provides you with songs based on what other listeners like you are listening to.
Unlike Last.fm, it only plays songs you have however. But don't worry, there's a sidebar which you can open which will suggest similar songs for you to buy. Just make sure you don't already own them, even if iTunes thinks you don't.
What you see above is a playlist generated from When the Sun Goes Down, by the Arctic Monkeys. Pretty impressive; the playlist does mesh well together. They always start with the track that you used to create the playlist, and they normally play a couple other tracks by that artist, yet still keep it diverse, artist-wise.
It's not without its problems though. When I wanted to create a Christmas playlist based off of 'Somewhere In My Memory (Home Alone)' by the Boston Pops Orchestra, they told me that "Genius is unavailable for that song." Sad, well let's try 'Let it Snow!' by Bing Crosby. Still unavailable? Does iTunes hate Christmas???
I'm not the only one getting this message. A lot of people are getting it when using tracks that aren't sold on iTunes, most notably the Beatles.
As you can see, I eventually found something to build a Christmas playlist off of. This wasn't the only track I was able to do so with; I'm at about a 60% success rating with Christmas songs.
Some people love this, and others, not so much. Some will make fun of it, but I'm pretty impressed. Good show Apple, good show.
Recommendations
Apple is late to the game
But still arrogant
Godspeed.
This posted tagged as: music, technology
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