Today Apple released Itunes 8 for free download. I didn’t get a solid chance to fool around with it yet, but It seems interesting enough. The new features include recommended playlists through the new application called Genius, a new viewing option called grid and some HD features.

Genius Sidebar

First things first, Genius took some time to read my library and I don’t know how long it really took, because I was watching the premier of Fringe. Everything did update smoothly though and it seems to be working (I hope I don’t jinx myself for typing that). Anyways, what Genius does is take all your music in the library and pretty much sees what your interests are. It’s sort of functions like Last.fm without the social aspect of it. What you can do is right click on a song and choose Start Genius. It will then make a custom playlist for you with similar bands from your library. It starts at 25 songs, but you then can move up in increments of 25 all the way up to 100. It’s not a bad feature and I’m glad that Itunes is progressing. With Genius you can also click on a song and if you have the Genius sidebar open, it will display other songs from the artist you don’t have and recommendations from other similar bands. That’s probably one of the main features I like.

Grid View

Another feature of Itunes 8 is the Grid viewing option. This feature is basically another way of showcasing all your bands. It’s basically a fancy thumbnail viewer displaying your choice of all the album artwork, all the artists, the different genres, and even the composers of your library. It’s good for looks I guess.

I can’t really comment on the HD features of Itunes 8, because I basically don’t use it for that function.  I rarely download any video from the Itunes store, but here is what’s on Apple’s site.

Purchase select episodes of your favorite TV shows in high definition for just $2.99. Or get the whole season in HD with a Season Pass. And when you buy HD, iTunes doubles your viewing pleasure: You also get an iPod-ready version with a file size and resolution that’s ideal for smaller screens.

There is also enhance accessibility for screen readers for Mac and PC for Itunes 8 as well.

So, start downloading