I never used the Party Shuffle feature much on iTunes, cos the regular shuffle button is already what I needed, and frankly I like to be surprised for the song that is coming up next instead of seeing the the whole list of random songs that are coming up next.  But then again, it could just be the plain list view of the Party Shuffle was so boring that it turns me off.  Then Apple renamed Party Shuffle to iTunes DJ.  On the iTunes client doesn’t look like it change much, but when you look at it at the Remote app on the iPhone, all of the sudden it become an awesome way to play with your music.  Now it’s true that it is still just a randomize list of 25 songs, but on the iPhone Remote app it’s all display attractively with album art, the fun thing is that you can click on the heart icon to vote! Now it won’t do much if it’s just you yourself, because when a song get a vote all it does is push the song up the list with the 1 vote icon.  However, apparently if there are other people in the house that also got an iPhone with the Remote app, they can vote as well! so then the song that get the most vote will get play first! It’s such a fun idea!  Guest can also request song to put on the list as well.

Now all of those features were all well covered if you read any Apple news sites and blogs, but there’s one aspect of the Remote app that I don’t recall it got mentioned.  I found that instead of clicking on the heart icon to vote, the host can click on the song itself, it will bring you to another menu with the song you selected.  Underneath would be a “Play Now” and a “Play Next” button.  But after that is what gets interesting – there’s a list of “Genius Recommends…” songs from your Library! You can click the add icon next to these songs to add them to the list as well.  Let me tell you why that’s good, so let’s say the iTunes DJ is playing a Snow Patrol song, you really feeling the alternative rock sound and want to hear more but not necessarily by Snow Patrol.  You are too lazy to browse through the Artists list to find another band that sounds similar.  The next few songs on the iTunes DJ list are all other genres.  This is where this particular feature comes in, right on that screen, just click on the song and it will show me Keane or The Fray and I can add the songs to have 3 songs of alternative rock.  The implementation is even better than the main Genius playlist feature when you are on your own listening – because this time it really is a recommendation that you can choose to add instead of blindly accept a whole list of songs the Genius playlist suggested.

Sometimes, Apple’s good idea happens to be in the least focus area where it is not even publicize.  The details on the Remote app on the iPhone is one of them.

Related posts:

1. Oh Genius
2. Moodagent
3. Groove
4. Chinese music in iTunes Store
5. Tap Tap Revenge 3

Tagged: Apple · Apps · iPhone · iTunes · Music