I have to say, after having a little play around with the new Genius feature in iTunes 8, I'm impressed. It's one of those 'does what it says on the tin' things that Apple does so well - it just works.

Genius is the new feature that automatically generates a playlist from your music library based on a single song. So if you choose something rocky by Nirvana then expect Genius to create a playlist of similar types of songs. It also recommends other music on the iTunes Store that you might like to purchase because other people who brought that song also brought it.

Of course, Genius is bad news for all those companies making similar programs that recommend tracks based on music you select, such as The Filter. The Filter aren't taking it lying down though. Faced with their potential irrelevance thanks to Apple they issued this spirited, if lengthy, reply:

“We genuinely welcome what Apple is endeavoring to do with Genius – it brings into the mainstream what we’ve known for some time, namely that with too much choice, recommendation solutions are the future of search and discovery in the digital age. While we believe, as you’d expect, that our blend of Bayesian algorithms and collaborative technology delivers better quality playlists and recommendations within music, we further differentiate ourselves by broadening out this technology beyond music. The Filter is truly different because the technology determines our tastes by making sense of our aggregated activity on The Filter, iTunes/WMP/WinAmp and other movie and music services (e.g. last.fm and flixster) and uses this to filter music, movies, video and news feeds that match our tastes. In time, we expect The Filter to become the choice for personalised (and totally unbiased!) recommendations within the world of entertainment (music, movie, video and television content), while also acting as a brilliant portable tool of all your tastes and activity – something we genuinely believe to be the future, and something that really is ‘genius’…”

So far only one song I've tried to base a playlist around (Good Riddance by Green Day) has popped up a message saying that it was unknown to iTunes, so it couldn't use it as a basis for a playlist, but that as more people start to use Genius the situation would change, so, er, try again later. Not so much a case of "computer says 'no'", more like "iTunes says 'no'"

So what do you think of Genius and iTunes 8? Post your thoughts here.