Apple has released iTunes 4.5. New features include:
- iMix - Share your taste. Publish your playlists (including SmartPlaylists)
- Party Shuffle (Smart Playlists for the lazy)
- Printing - Creating Jewel case inserts (full bleed with crop marks, but no cd labels)
- Radio Charts - What's playing around the U.S.
- Movie trailers & Music Videos
- WAM - Convert WMA to AAC (Windows version only)
- Apple Lossless Codec - CD Quality Sound. Half the size.
- 5 Authorized Machines!
- Links to the music store from your music library
There is an improvement to the smart playlist functionality- Playlists can now be based on other playlists with the selector "Playlist - is/is not." Thanks adam for catching this! As adam puts it, "This opens up worlds of possibilities." He's right.
For a limited time, Apple is giving away free downloads from artists who have played a role in helping the store- Foo Fighters, Avril Lavigne, Courtney Love, Annie Lennox, Jane’s Addiction, Counting Crows, Renee Fleming and Nelly Furtado.
Music videos now have the itms track listed at the bottom.
by dfbills on Apr 28 | 10:49 am
i just downloaded this, and cant understand the party shuffle. What does it class as an 'upcoming' song?
by liam™ on Apr 28 | 1:04 pm
Seems to me that it is grabbing random tracks from the playlist selected at the bottom.
by dfbills on Apr 28 | 4:11 pm
There are essentially no changes to the smart playlist functionality.
Whoa there — you can now use "Playlist is/is not _____" as a criterion for a Smart Playlist! This opens up worlds of possibilities!
by adam on Apr 29 | 6:55 am
Can't believe I missed that! That was a big one! Thanks adam- I wonder who will get the first playlist posted with this new feature...
by dfbills on Apr 29 | 9:38 am
Yeah, this meta-playlist thing is really cool ... but is anyone else finding that it doesn't work on the iPod? I made a playlist of two other playlists that works fine in iTunes, but it's completely blank and songless in the iPod!
by nyorker on Apr 29 | 7:30 pm
Nevermind about my comment above -- I was a silly goof and didn't install iPod update 2004-04-28 along with iTunes 4.5. The smart playlists-based-on-smart playlists still won't update themselves on my iPod, but at least they're there.
by nyorker on Apr 29 | 9:17 pm
Yeah.. I've also noticed that the live updating doesn't work on nested playlists on the ipod :(
by camson on Apr 30 | 1:49 am
The "Playlist - is/is not." is just great! This now allows me to have for example a 50/50% mix of two genres or similar stuff... Just what I always wanted (because my standard random playlists were a little too biased to one genre, I am not telling which ;-)
by Palmin on Apr 30 | 6:19 am
Another change to the SmartPlaylist functionality is that lists that use the Group field now work when transferred to an iPod running firmware 2.2.
Though in my situation the ability to have "Playlist is/is not" obviates the need for Group based playlists.
Music videos now have the itms track listed at the bottom.