Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[glynor]

So far I see...

iTunes 8 Genius == MC12 Radio mode

iTunes 8 Grid == MC12 "Tiles" View mode

In both cases, it looks like MC12's implementation is vastly superior.

[JimH]

We're calling our attorney right now.

[glynor]

We're calling our attorney right now.

Wow.  This is really amazing stuff... For last year.   

EDIT: The scrubbing on the tiles (ala iPhoto) is pretty cool though.

[glynor]

Hmmm... No GPS on the new Touch.  That's kinda a bummer.  Biggest thing with the touch redesign is the integrated volume control like the iPhone has always had, and a slightly different (more iPhone 3G like) look, but still metal-backed. The new Nanos were just as reported widely elsewhere in advance.  The Touch is WAY cheaper.  $229 for the 8GB.  Just a tiny premium over the iPhone, without the contract price of course.

They focused a LOT on the "Genius" feature which looks for all intents and purposes to be very similar to the MC12 Radio feature.  It calculates the playlist based on previous plays, skips, ratings, etc, and uses info from the "cloud" (what other people have done in aggregate).

Hardly anything was described in detail about the iPhone 2.1 software update.  No mention of Turn-by-Turn GPS (though perhaps they're going to let Garmin or Tom Tom handle announcing that), not really much in the way of new features mentioned other than Nike+ and Genius support.  Did mention briefly: "Some great new performance enhancements... free to all owners, available this Friday... This is a big update, it fixes lots of bugs. Fewer dropped calls, big battery life improvements. No crashes with Apps. Backing up is faster."

Hope so.

All in all, a bit of a disappointment, really.  Mostly because everything leaked ahead of time (the new Nano and lower prices).  I imagine Apple is pissed about that leak.

[BartMan01]

Hmmm... No GPS on the new Touch.  That's kinda a bummer.

Agree - one of my BIGGEST issues with the touch is the lack of the ability to MANUALLY set your location.  If you are in an 'un-mapped' wi-fi area the touch has no clue where you are and none of the location based apps/features work.  It's not that hard to add your location to the wi-fi library, but I am long gone from the area before the new mappings make it out to the wild.  GPS would have made me consider selling my nearly new touch and getting a new one.

[Peter_T]

Does the iTunes Genius feature consult anywhere to build its' playlists?  It might be more like last.fm than MC. 

[glynor]

Does the iTunes Genius feature consult anywhere to build its' playlists?  It might be more like last.fm than MC. 

It wasn't clear.  It looks like it does have some sort of "cloud" functionality on iTunes at least, but since it is supported on iPods it must also be able to work all on it's own, just like MC's Radio mode.

The demo Apple put out makes it look a lot like a dumbed-down version of MC's Radio play mode.

[JimH]

... some sort of "cloud" functionality ...

I wish we could go back to calling it the Information Superhighway, like it should have been in the first place.

[adamsp70]

I wish we could go back to calling it the Information Superhighway, like it should have been in the first place.

Yep - here in the UK, "clouds" are just things that end up getting you wet and miserable....

[Peter_T]

...but since it is supported on iPods it must also be able to work all on it's own, just like MC's Radio mode.

I didn't notice that - yes, it would have to be able to work on its own...  That would be a butt-load of meta-data to be able to intelligently create those types of playlists on the fly.

[ThoBar]

Yep - here in the UK, "clouds" are just things that end up getting you wet and miserable....

HA.

haha

hahahahhahahaaa... love it!

Is that comment GPL? Can I use it free? 

[Mr ChriZ]

Yep - here in the UK, "clouds" are just things that end up getting you wet and miserable....

It's odd this bright white thing appeared in the sky over the weekend. None of us are sure what it is.
It's suprisingly warm.  Best theory I've heard so far is it's an Alien Crafts landing light.

[datdude]

It wasn't clear.  It looks like it does have some sort of "cloud" functionality on iTunes at least, but since it is supported on iPods it must also be able to work all on it's own, just like MC's Radio mode.

The demo Apple put out makes it look a lot like a dumbed-down version of MC's Radio play mode.

It could be acoustic signature based.  Haven't tried it out though.

[e-head]

It wasn't clear.  It looks like it does have some sort of "cloud" functionality on iTunes at least, but since it is supported on iPods it must also be able to work all on it's own, just like MC's Radio mode.

The demo Apple put out makes it look a lot like a dumbed-down version of MC's Radio play mode.

It's definitely not a dumbed down Radio play mode. It's not random. The playlist is comprised of "related" tracks, which it somehow figures out based on peoples listening and purchasing habits. It uploads your play stats when you first turn it on.

I've found that it's playlists are surprisingly accurate at times with some tracks, and not so good with other tracks. Still, I think it's pretty fun.

The real magic is how they manage to keep all this information on your database somehow, and transfer it to your iPod.

I'm currently thinking about doing something similiar with last.fm and a plugin. Shouldn't be that hard. It won't work on the iPod of course, but still. I'm not sure if last.fm's "similiar tracks/artist" feature will return playlists as good as iTunes genius or not. It would be interesting to find out.