The new iTunes 8 has been out for a few weeks and I finally got around to installing it. Interface is interesting. I think it’s better… maybe. I’ve yet to try the Genius ‘similar songs’ picker thing as it come with a pretty scary privacy warning. Here’s a taste…

The information sent to Apple includes details about the media in your iTunes library such as track names, play counts, and ratings. This information will be stored with an anonymous Genius ID and not linked to your iTunes Account. When using the iTunes Store or Genius sidebar, Apple will also use your purchase history to give you better recommendations.

Hmmm, not sure just yet.

However, I had a wow-moment when I saw the new Visualizer (the old one is still there if you like it btw). If you don’t know what it is, it’s a real-time ‘screensaver’ that reacts to your music. It’s under the iTunes ‘view’ menu or Apple-M on a mac fires it into life. The new version is simply awesome. It’s the ultimate proof that in the right hands, maths can be excruciatingly beautiful. If you have it running, press ‘M’ to go tough all of the various styles. My kids spent about an hour staring at it, that’s longer than they spent the entire weekend watching TV!

Incidentally, I’ve been playing with the Apple developers kit and the ‘Quartz’ compiler is amazing. Quartz is the environment used to create visual effects such as screensavers, iTunes visualizers, graphic filters and so on. Literally drag and drop coding and the results make the eyebrows of even the most hardened anti-Mac fan boy rise a few feet above their egg-shaped foreheads. Will post something soon.

STOP PRESS

Complete coincidence but the day after writing this post, I attended a presentation by the the creator of the new iTunes visualiser, Robert Hodgin at Flash On the Beach in Brighton. One of the brightest people you are ever going to meet. I dare you to watch his render of Magnetosphere and disagree. All built in Processing… if I had a cloning machine, my clever alter-ego would be learning Processing as we speak. Simply mind-blowing in the right hands!