Given that I already got the iPhone and and iPod Classic (160GB! now extincted!) that is less than a year old, this Tuesday’s Apple iPod announcement although interesting, are not something that I would get. My main focus is the software feature that they announced and a certain accessories.

I am definitely interested in their new in-ear headphone. Their old one was a good try but eventually I switch to v-moda’s headphone, especially once v-moda got the microphone version out. My headphone break frequently due to my excessive usage, so I am thinking once I am done with the v-moda pair I got, I will try Apple’s new in-ear headphone. (Although not officially compatible to the iPhone because the volume button do not work, but given the cheaper price than v-moda and it’s Apple, it’s worth a try~)

iTunes 8 is very interesting, the grid view highlight how many more obscure album artworks I have to find on my own! But it is nevertheless a solid improvement than the previous useless album view. I am thinking if I can’t find some of the artwork, I might go ahead and find a picture of the artist and just put it there, at least it’s something there~

Genius playlist has potential, but so far the result is a mix~ maybe 80% of the song it found in my collection matches what I selected, but something it just make you scratch your head and asking why this? For example, I selected Kelly Clarkson’s Because of You and one of the odd choice Genius pick is Britney Spears’ Gimme More. I mean seriously?? I know they are both pop singers, but the rhythm of the song couldn’t be more different!! And that is what I realize Genius is not based on the rhythm to find songs that are alike, but so far based on the song’s metadata, like genre or purchase pattern from the iTunes Store to make the recommendation. Hopefully one people upload their info to Genius it will get smarter and rely less on people’s purchase pattern. The Genius feature works fairly well on iTunes, and on my iPhone – although my collection on the iPhone is a much smaller sub-set, so the choices are limited. I heard rumor that they might give this Genius feature update to the first gen iPod Classic, hopefully that’s gonna happen~

My favorite of all is actually the new visualizer they have on the iTunes! It’s just so amazingly pretty! The past few nights all I do was to turn off all the lights in my room, make it full screen on my 24″ giant screen iMac and just listen and watch the visualizer, at the same time pretend that I am with the Doctor, flying in the TARDIS and looking out to see the weird galaxies! It’s nothing I have seen before!! BTW, there’s options and features hidden in this new visualizer as well! if you hit “?” a list of key options will appear as followed:

? Toggle help screen
M Change mode
P Change palette
I Display track info
C Toggle auto-cycle (on by default)
F Toggle freeze mode
N Toggle nebula mode
L Toggle camera lock

My favorite is the freeze mode, once your visualizer got busy with all the “planets” and “stars” and pretty ribbons, hit F and the whole thing frozen, but your camera is still moving, and the color is still changing, so you kinda in some kind of Matrix zone, it’s the coolest thing ever!!!! Highly recommend you try this out!!!

Related posts:

1. Oh Genius
2. Moodagent
3. Weakling’s journey to Apple
4. iTunes Remote app
5. Apple in March

Tagged: Apple · headphone · iPod · iTunes