Apple has posted iTunes 8 downloads for Macintosh and Windows.
iTunes is the best way to enjoy your music and video with your Mac, iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV.
iTunes 8 includes Genius, which makes playlists from songs in your library that go great together. Genius also includes Genius sidebar, which recommends music from the iTunes Store that you don’t already have.
With iTunes 8, browse your artists and albums visually with the new Grid view; download your favorite TV shows in HD quality from the iTunes Store; sync your media with iPod nano (4th generation), iPod classic (120GB), and iPod touch (2nd generation); and enjoy a cool new music visualizer.
iTunes 8 and iTunes U are now accessible with VoiceOver on your Mac.
iTunes 8 requirements:
Hardware:
• Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, G4, or G3 processor
• Playing videos from the iTunes Store requires a Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5 or 1.0GHz PowerPC G4 or faster processor
• Playing HD-quality videos from the iTunes Store requires a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or faster processor
• 512MB of RAM; 1GB is required to play HD-quality videos
• Playing videos also requires at least 16MB of video RAM
• A broadband Internet connection to use the iTunes Store
• An Apple combo drive or SuperDrive to create audio, MP3, or back-up CDs; some non-Apple CD-RW recorders may also work.
• An Apple SuperDrive to back up your library to DVDs; some non-Apple DVD-RW drives may also work.
Software:
• Mac OS X version 10.4.9 or later
• QuickTime 7.5.5 or later is required
• 200MB of available disk space
iPod and iPhone:
• Syncing purchased videos requires iPod nano (3rd generation), iPod classic, or iPod (5th generation) with software version 1.2 or later.
• Transferring rented movies requires iPod nano (3rd generation) and iPod classic with software version 1.1 or later or iPod touch and iPhone with software version 1.1.3 or later.
• Syncing ringtones requires iPhone software version 1.1 or later.
• Purchasing or syncing applications require an iPhone or iPod touch with the iPhone 2.0 software update or later.
• Purchasing from the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store requires iPhone or iPod touch software version 1.1.1 or later.
• Syncing iPod Games requires iPod nano (3rd generation), iPod classic, or iPod (5th generation) with software version 1.2 or later. Some iPod Games may not be compatible with iPod nano (3rd generation) and iPod classic.
Nike + iPod:
• Nike + iPod requires a Nike + iPod Sport Kit or Sensor, a compatible iPod, and Nike+ ready shoes.
• Nike + iPod is compatible with iPod nano and iPod touch (2nd generation). iPod nano (1st generation) must have software version 1.2 or later.
• To see your workout data on nikeplus.com, an Internet connection and a free Nike.com account are required.
Apple TV:
• Renting or purchasing using Apple TV requires Apple TV software version 2.0 or later.
• HD movies from the iTunes Store are designed exclusively for Apple TV and may not be transferred to iTunes.
AirPort Express with AirTunes:
• Playing your music with one or more AirPort Express base stations requires AirPort Express software version 6.3 or later.
• AirPort Express with AirTunes requires an AirPort or AirPort Extreme card and a compatible stereo system or powered speakers.
iTunes 8 is not yet available via Software Update, but it is available via standalone installers.
More info and download links:
• iTunes 8 for Macintosh (55.9MB)
iTunes 8 isn’t coming up for me via Software Update or any external link. According to Apple, I have nothing to download and update.
Check out the new visualizer. Even in a sagging economy, the marijuana growers just got an economic boost.
Scot:
You can get it here:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/
Scott, from the story –
“iTunes 8 is not yet available via Software Update, but it is available via standalone installers.”
hmmmmm…. iTunes 8 is “Creating Artwork Thumbnails” for my entire music library.
This is gonna take awhile
Weirdness abounds… I couldn’t get the link through Firefox, but when I used Safari, I found it just fine. I just DL’d it and installed it. We’ll see! And no damned “snappy” jokes.
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> Check out the new visualizer.
THAT is really cool… Thanks for pointing it out (since I hadn’t watched the Jobs presentation yet)
‘Genius’ choked on my library of 41,879 tracks. I initialized it 3 times before it finally gave me any suggestions.
Apple misled us as to what it does. At least as of today it merely links to the artist’s page, and suggests additional tracks by that artist, if they are in the iTunes Store. Click on a Beatles track, and you get Beyonce??? Generic results for artists not in the Apple iTunes Store database.
Uhhhh, anyone notice the iTunes store has been broken for a LONG time?? They better get this back on soon or there’ll be hell to pay!
Very cool new visualizer! Also check out keyboard options while it is playing; f, l, m, others?
hey, hit the ? key and it brings up the menu of options you can use with the visualizer…
@Scott, unless I misunderstand what you are writing, you’re missing the functionality. The sidebar links to other tracks in the Store, but the little button at the bottom actually builds playlists out of what you already own. For me, it works very well.
@John…
Say what?
Yesterday, I downloaded an iTunes Plus album and today, I downloaded the free stuff + 1 movie.
No iTunes Music Store Brokenness in sight!
They really need that visualizer in TV. Much better than the flipping album cover thing.
Anyone notice that you can now add descriptions under Get Info?
(Now all it needs is to add actors/directors tag)
A good update!
Superdave…
I know what you mean. On the music side, I’d love to be able have a symphony, concerto, quartet or sonata appear as ONE piece with the separate movements as sub-tracks. This is LONG overdue. I have very few “songs” in my iTunes library.
Also, why don’t they add sub-artist fields, like orchestra, conductor, soloist fields?
ie: Bartók Violin Concerto #2 Anne Sophie Mutter (violin), Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa (conductor). it would make tracking and sorting things so much more accurate.
I’ve read somewhere that this is already possible and built-in to the metadata format, it just needs to be activated.
C’mon Apple we don’t ALL listen to a string of one-hit wonders.
BTW: the new visualizer is fantastic!
This thing will run on a PowerPC G3? Anyone here can comment on how that’s going?
New visualizer is awesome. So is Genius.
The Genius playlist works quite well. What an amazing way to share data anonymously and effortlessly between millions of users. Only Apple and maybe Google could have come up with an idea like this, and if Google did it, it wouldn’t be effortless.
I never liked making playlists, so I ended up using shuffle play a lot, but this is much better. Best new feature since the iTunes Music Store was added to iTunes…
> This thing will run on a PowerPC G3? Anyone here can comment on how that’s going?
On the older version, it worked but graphically intensive features such as Cover Flow were disabled (you get a message that it does not work on this computer where the Cover Flow diagram would be). Video is not smooth in the same way as QuickTime Player when playing all but the lowest resolution videos.
But this is a function of graphics processor as much as the CPU type. So things will work better if the G3 Mac is a 900 MHz iBook, versus my old CRT iMac. I haven’t tried to install iTunes 8 on it yet (it might choke and die).
iTunesU is like a magnificent treasure. You can dowload everything from poetry, live interviews with writers, broadcast news, science podcasts, history lessons, etc. from the best universities in the US (more than seventy) and around the world (only a few for now…), the MoMA, NASA, individual researchers and more.
That’s one of the reasons I admire the US. Another reason is Apple, of course…
At least as of right now, the “Genius” feature seems to be practically useless for those of us who are mainly classical music listeners. Judging from the looks of things, I don’t think this works at all like Pandora’s classification system does. Selecting practically anything in my classical collection makes “Genius” choke up a furball. Even a Sigur Rós track yields totally different styled music.
I kept my expectations very, very low for this feature to be of any use to me at all, and I’m glad I did.
@ Mikhail
I agree so far as classical or baroque music is concerned, but “Genius” works well with French songs (Jacques Brel, Charles Trenet, Edith Piaf, etc.) which I also listen to and have a large collection, and Opera albums.
Genius feature is taking the input of all users and using it for “suggestions”.
You and I both have song A. I have song X. When you look at the genius thingy, it will recommend song X.
iTunes 8 and HD stuff work fine on my core duo processor(not core 2 duo as it says is needed).
A G3?
No way.
What a blow, that Genius feature works like the retarded cousin of Pandora. Admitted, I didn’t really expect it to be as revolutionary as Pandora…but so far it’s more or less embarrassing. Especially frustrating for people outside of the U.S who can’t use Pandora anymore. Also, I can’t believe that so little extra functionality is being added to iTunes with each update. Like, searching for a track would also show me in what playlist(s) it resides. Still missing is the possibility to recognize a track-name in my playlist – although something has been misspelled or the album name is missing. Goggle Suggest, anyone? And it’s still impossible to send iTunes gifts/playlists to people outside your own country i.e someone in Germany can’t give a person in Sweden a gift/playlist. I could go on rambling…
cheers
Genius seemed to work ok on my end. Took a while to sort through 65 gigs or so of music. The suggestions weren’t too far out there, but Apple def. will be tweaking it me thinks.
Bug in iTunes 8-don’t get hi-def version of show if you use shopping cart.
Have to use one-click to get it.
HD files are noted as such by little HD icon in place of monitor icon for video in list view.