What’s new in iTunes 8.1: Crowd sourcing the mix at your party
Yesterday’s release of iTunes 8.1 was expected, though some of the features were not anticipated and how they will be used and abused by users has yet to play out. If you have an iPod or iPhone, syncing is definitely much faster, though I haven’t noticed the promised iTunes Store speed improvements (actually, I’ve seen a lot of errors instead).
And yes, the Genius Sidebar has been extended to movies and television shows (yawn) and Parental Controls allow fine tuning (ie iTunesU and iTunes Store functionality can be individually tweaked), but these features are small potatoes compared the changes Apple’s made to iTunes DJ (aka Party Shuffle).
For example, anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch can now request (and even play on demand) any song in your library using Apple’s updated iPhone Remote app (below). This sounds both like a recipe both for disaster and perhaps a lot of fun—crowd sourcing the mix at your next party or even messing with you when you’re listening to music at a public Wi-Fi hotspot.
iPhone Remote 1.2 available
Apple has also quietly updated the its free application for using the iPhone or iPod touch as an iTunes remote via Wi-Fi. iPhone Remote 1.2 provides bug fixes and compatibility with iTunes 8.1.
Download your copy of Remote 1.2 (iTunes) now.
That said, DJ has its own preference settings, which (thankfully) allows you to set password access to this functionality. You can access prefs by clicking on iTunes DJ under playlists in the left hand tray and then clicking Settings at the lower right.
Designate a password and even type in welcome message that will greet anyone connecting to your Library to make a request, vote or take over the mix.
iTunes 8.1 also offers the ability to import songs at the same quality as iTunes Plus, which should help smooth out any differences in track quality. There’s also “improved performance when download iTunes Plus songs,” but as noted above since upgrading to v8.1 I’ve been getting errors instead of downloads.
Get your copy of iTunes 8.1 by clicking here (63.4MB) and sound off below with your impressions…
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March 12th, 2009
Good post thanks
April 4th, 2009
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Ruth
http://fendisite.com