iTunes 8 provides a range of new and exciting features, designed specifically for those who have an account at an iTunes Store.

The best feature of the lot has to be the Genius, which includes a smart sidebar and playlist. It also has a playlist feature which captures data about the songs you are listening to and songs that you rate. It then recommends songs for you based on the data that has been captured. All you have to do is simply choose a song in your collection and the Genius playlist will then automatically organise and produce a list of songs for you to buy. It may be slightly daunting to have a machine recommend you songs, but the good news is that they are based on songs you listen to and songs that you like.

The sidebar feature of Genius also works in a similar way, but instead of songs it recommends albums and artists. It uses captions such as “Top Albums” and “Top Songs You’re Missing”, which makes this feature, look good, but when used there can be some issues. For example, when we used iTunes, we were recommended random songs, but to make things worse we had been asked to buy albums that we already had.

For those who do not like the cover flow layout or the seemingly plain text only style, the new grid view will provide the perfect mix. The album art can also be resized under the new grid view making it very convenient to view other things. You can get to see the tracks an album contains by double-clicking it in Grid view. You can also play the songs on the album be simply hitting the play button.

One downside though is that links that connect tracks with the iTunes Store have been made permanent. They cannot be put away so they are not seen either.

Good news everyone, I have just gotten paid for the illustration work that I did on those pvc banners last week. Turns out that Peggy was right, and the pink was a major improvement.