I will start by saying that I am a huge supporter of Pandora. When I heard about this Pandora like service being built into iTunes, I am stoked because Pandora is looking like it might go out of business. I was very hopeful that iTunes 8 would fill the void in my life that is going to be created when/if Pandora disappears.

I have been playing with iTunes 8 and the new Genius functionality, and I am not very impressed. I like the new viewing options available in iTunes 8, and the new visualizations are stunning, but iTunes Genius is a different story.

iTunes Genius goes through and analyzes your music collection when you first install iTunes 8. From there, it allows you to click the Genius button when you select a song, and it will auto create a playlist filling with a preset number of songs that iTunes believe are along the same style of music. Well, it doesn’t work. I am going to give Apple the benefit of the doubt, that this service will improve once more people experiment with it, but for now, it is no good. Let me give you and example:

As you can see I created a iTunes Genius playlist based on the song I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry, and what is this, Disturbed showed up in the results? Those songs could not be more opposite.

What are your thoughts on iTunes 8 and the new Genius integration? Have you had any strange results appear when using the Genius playlist creator?

Hot off the press, Apple C.E.O. Steve Jobs just announced a new function in iTunes 8. This function called Genius is essentially Pandora. Based on rating, number of plays, and style of music, iTunes 8 will make other recommendation of artist and songs it thinks you will like. The Genius function will also analyze your library and create playlist based on the artist. Like Pandora, this will auto create playlist of music that sounds alike. I think it is a functionality that is well over due to iTunes which is now the largest distributor of music in the US.

This service seems like a compelete rip of the famous service my Pandora Music. Most people are saying that this is a welcome addition to iTunes because Pandora is doomed to shutdown soon.