How do I enable or turn on the genius feature in the new Apple iTunes?

Before I go too far with this article, let me say that I too was very interested in the new Genius feature, though I'm a bit baffled why they gave it that name as I was instantly confused because of the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. "How are these related?" I wondered, until I decided that they were in fact completely unrelated. Maybe "DJ" or, knowing Apple naming, "iDJ" could have been more appropriate?

The early buzz I read on this feature also led me to believe that it would somehow be able to analyze your music and create smart, dynamic playlists so you could pick a song then have a "play more in my library like this" and have it do a good job. It does, and it does a surprisingly good job (as you'll see in a future blog post where I talk about how to use it) but I still suspect most people won't use it, even if it's superb.

Before we even start, I'm not the only person to be surprised and a bit disappointed by the fact that at its core, the Genius feature of iTunes 8.0 seems to be primarily just a way to sell more music from the iTunes Store.

Apple has a track record of releasing things that look kind of interesting but grow in capabilities and sophistication over the subsequent months, though, so let me show you how to turn this feature on with the hopes that the more people use it, the more it'll evolve and become cool.

Anyway, on with the topic!

When you download and install the new iTunes 8.0, you'll see a new playlist:

Promising enough, eh? Click on it and you'll find that it's time to set things up:

Click on "Turn on Genius" (which I presume is done by giving them a complex monograph, but that's another story entirely) to proceed:

If you already have an iTunes account, you can just enter your credentials here. If not, you'll need to set one up. Again, remember that the primary goal of the Genius playlist is to sell more songs, so this step involves you doing what Amazon would call "setting up one-click buying".

Click "Continue" once you have successfully logged in:

A few minutes later it started slogging along, as shown in the top:

I admit, the step of gathering information about my 8000+ song library took hours, in fact, so many hours that I left the computer and went to bed. The next morning it had presumably gone through steps two and three, because the next screen I saw was:

To see how it worked, I selected a song from my library. As you can see here, a new Genius sidebar is shown along with a neat new "thumbnail" view of my albums:

When I chose a song from favorite musician Bobby McFerrin, here are the Genius suggestions:

I dunno, Devo's Whip It and Madness' Our House as recommendations? I hope things improve, as Apple suggests, because personally, I would have suggested a few different musicians, like Al Jarreau, George Benson, Richard Bona or even Lionel Hampton.

How about you? Are you finding the Genuis playlist feature a nice addition to iTunes 8.0 or something you're ignoring?