Filed under: Desktops, Home Entertainment, Laptops

Just in time for sofa season, Apple has busted out iTunes 8 with a slew of new features, like the Genius sidebar. Also, NBC is back on board with its lineup of TV shows. According to Jobs, “The Office is coming back, Monk, Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock… and they’re coming back in HD.” HD versions of shows will run you $2.99 while SD versions run a reasonable $1.99 (when compared to, say, a full month’s cable access). Meanwhile, “Genius” is a new feature that Apple says will change the way you browse your media. “Old browsing wasn’t efficient,” stated Jobs. “in iTunes 8 you can look by album cover, and this new bar at the top let’s you look at anything graphically in tiny tiles.” Basically, Genius is a contextual iTunes store suggestion tool that’ll, in essence, make it easier for you to spend money. It also makes custom playlists on the fly based on your habits, and shares them (anonymously, they promise) with other users. So what’s missing so far? None of the rumored subscription services, for one, and any mention of new hardware or iPhone functions, like, state disk mode. We’ll keep wishing. Apple says it is making iTunes 8 available immediately (which, to them, might mean “some time later”), so let the download races start!

Update: We’ve got a gallery of iTunes 8 — check it out below.

Continue reading Apple launches iTunes 8, NBC comes back, Television shows at $1.99, Genius in the home

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 9:03 am and is filed under Laptops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.