This should be considered huge progress–many years ago when installing iTunes and quicktime you would be required to reboot your computer. Welcome to 2010; iTunes is up and running again without a reboot. I remember fondly multi-disk software installations (say, a series of 10 floppies) and multi-reboot installations on older versions of windows.

Maybe someday soon Apple will make a version of iTunes for windows that feels snappy and native, and then all will be well with the world.

• What do you do for a living?
• What is the age of the primary user of this iPod?
• Which of the following statements best represents this iPod?

Either it’s quiz night and Apple is playing questions, or they are making me tell them more than I want to just to sync music to my new iPod nano. Here are the options in the dropdowns you can choose from (I put Other/65+/In addition):

Apple wants to violate your privacy

Apple wants to know your age

Apple wants to know if you’re quitting another brand

It’s worse that you cannot decline to provide this information. If you leave the form blank, you are forced to fill it in:

Apple needs to take its users’ privacy more seriously. If they want demographic brand / market research done, they should pay a PR/research firm to go out and get the data that they need, from willing volunteers.

Other people have complained about the amount of data Apple requires to get an iTunes account opened for their Apple iPads.

And here’s a 30s mockup in Microsoft Word using their famous “Word Art” tool:

You would think they would spend a little more time on this, but perhaps the iTunes 10 team was too busy making iTunes suck more on Windows, and this is subtle Microsoft jab, or else building the useless social network Pring. People have also complained that the icon is horrible and suggested alternatives. Oh well, Apple.

Perfect mixes come automatically.
Meet Genius Mixes. This new feature searches your iTunes library, finds songs that go great together, and creates multiple mixes you’ll love. All automatically. These mixes are like channels programmed entirely with your music. You may discover songs you never knew you had — and rediscover forgotten favorites.

They’re actually as good as Apple claims they are. To get started with genius mixes, first update your iTunes to version 9, then click on Store->Update Genius:

Then you’ll see a new “Genius Mixes” under the Genius bar on the left hand side:

This brilliant feature then scans your library, clusters your music into your favorite styles, and mashes them together into a continuous listening experience. My iTunes has suggested Rap, R&B, Metal, 4 Pop Mixes, Rock, Alternative, Latin, Japanese, and Electronic. Too bad there’s no Chinese mix, because I have an absolute ton of Japanese music:

Bitrate: 96 kbps
Encoder: FhG
Tags: ID3 v1/v2
Sample Rate: 44.100 khz

Trolling through online forums, the following advice was offered:

• Use the “Rock EQ” preset (didn’t work for me, and I tried turning EQ Off / Soundcheck On/Off too)
• Restore the iPhone (that sounds like a pain)
• Delete the playlist and remove all the songs from the phone, then create a new playlist and resync them
• Convert the music to AAC (right-click, convert to AAC)

Since the last option is the easiest, I tried it. And it worked–smooth playback. It’s possible that there really was something horrible with the files, as they stutter in VLC too!