Tech: Even Beethoven was Deaf
⊆ 4:09 PM by A. Liebendorfer | apple , genius , ipod , itunes , jessica alba , music . | ˜ 2 comments »As is sometimes characteristic of us college students, the pages I've read today could probably make a paper chain longer than I've walked today.
Thus far I've consumed about a hundred pages since last night, and still have that much more to be "sitting comfortably" tomorrow for classes. The total distance I've walked -has to be less than a quarter mile- has been comprised of sparse trips to the bathroom and, the highlight of the day, a trip from Washington to Jefferson for brunch. The reading this far into the game has been mostly im's and reading for "Religion, Gender, and Sexuality" and Journalism 101, but with Spanish and Public Speaking on the table for the third and fourth quarters.
Each reading session has been punctuated by a brief crawl over to my computer for some music, just to make sure I'm still human. Probably the driving force in my outside life today, I'm embarrassed to say, has been the exploration of Genius, the playlist generator provided on the latest version of iTunes.
I had a healthy list of four-letter words for Steve Jobs when I read earlier this week that the iPod classic I bought at the beginning of the summer was going to be outdated. I scrolled on the Apple website and read about the new 120Gb classic with its special "Genius" feature. Apple.com describes this innovation as follows:
Say you’re listening to a song you really like and want to hear other tracks that go great with it. With a few clicks, the new Genius feature finds the songs in your library that go great together and makes a Genius playlist for you. You can listen to the playlist right away, save it for later, or even refresh it and give it another go.
Come on, now, join in: and the crowd said "oooh;" "ahhh."
Not soon after this announcement, I was asked to update iTunes and get this new Genius gimmick on my computer. The first impression I had of it was how substantial it was: it took about fifteen minutes on my brand-new MacBook to install everything.
Same old iTunes, except now you can view your media in "Grid View" which isn't earth-shattering, but really a lot like the new versions of Windows Media Player sport. The navigation is a little more WMP-like too, which was my biggest complaint with iTunes aside from its hideous interface. Functional, but hideous
It was time to get into the meat and potatoes of iTunes 8. I forget exactly what I clicked but I was launched into Genius's setup, where it calibrated my library with iTunes "mainframe." The couple minutes it took got me excited for the grand show to come. The first thing that happened after the setup, though, was the sidebar came up. Oooh, the sidebar. Unfortunately, when I clicked a song, all that came up was what I'd call an iTunes Store sidebar. This incited a few more four-letter words, thinking this was it. I haven't paid for music in two years. How insulting.
Then I spied the Genius icon in the bottom right corner. I selected a song and clicked the icon and a Genius playlist opened up. Now we're cookin' with Crisco.
Except the Genius playlist wasn't as inventive as its name leads on. John Mayer's "Gravity" came up as one of the 25 songs for every song I chose: Springsteen's "Adam Raised a Cain," Coldplay's "Strawberry Swing," Kenny Chesney's "You Had Me from Hello," and various songs by Wu-Tang Clan.
Well, so much for that... for now. That's ok -Beethoven was a musical genius and he was deaf.
So just like everything else Apple does, it has planted the next seed of innovation with Genius, presenting it in near-infancy and with little to show for it.
September 15, 2008 at 8:15 PM I have to say, sir, I am growing fond of your wry musings on everyday life. And you are a betting man than me for braving a new Apple application...even the basic features of Macbook are too complex and frustrating for my tiny brain.
September 16, 2008 at 9:16 PM thank ye, thank ye. hey, were you at the SPJ meeting today? i think i walked right past you and i was like "hey, i think that guy commented on my blog today"