Imagine a world when, with the press of a button, you are presented the perfect playlist of music that all just flows together.

Oh. Apple already did this? Cool, does it actually work?

Apple’s new iTunes 8 presents a slew of new features including the ability to generate playlists of music that goes together. The website makes it sound so easy:

1. Select a song
2. Press the Genius button
3. A list is generated

Apple wasn’t lying, this is the way it works… but you will need to do some work before you can just “press the Genius button and pow its there”.

I have over 4,000 songs in the iTunes playlist so trust me when I say this process took a while. When you press the Genius button for the first time it asks you to log into the iTunes store. After logging in you are asked to agree to some terms of use. after you sign your life away you get to wait while your playlist is uploaded to iTunes, then while they generate your matches and you download them. It was painful sitting there watching the progress bar inch along at a snails pace. Maybe it was slow because I did this a few hours after iTunes 8 came out. Anyone else find the service slow?

Once you have the Genius list generated the system works just as advertised. Press the button and volia. One thing I do not like is the new side bar that comes with Genius… but this is totally optional so I have nothing to complain about.

Something worth noting is that all the new iPods that support Genius require you to generate the Genius list in iTunes before the feature becomes available. Not a big deal, I was just slightly disappointed with all the waiting. Clearly I’m impatient.

Anyone else find soemthing they really like about the Genius or any other new feature in iTunes 8? The visualizations are pretty sweet.