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Two days ago an Sept. 9th Apple released its new version of iTunes – iTunes9 and a new update for the iPhone OS which is mainly related to the integration of iTunes9.

After two days of playing around there are some points I’ve figured out:

1. Genius mix does not show up immediatly after the upgrade to the new version of iTunes – you have to interact
2. the iPhone will not show the Genius mixes by a new icon as it is shown on apple pages
3. the iPhone will not show the mixes till you sync them
4. syncing itself will ‘maybe’ not show up the mixes on your iPhone
5. there are still troubles with the mixes showing on the iPhone

But what does this mean in detail for users wanting to play around with the new Genius Mixes?

Let’s have a deeper look on the mentioned points:

ad 1. – Genius Mix does not show up immediatly…

after upgrading to the new version iTunes9 users have to update Genius again if the Genius Mix entry is not showing up automatically. To update Genius simply click on the related menu entry ‘Store / Update Genius’. When updating is finished the new Genius Mix entry should be visible on the left navigation sidebar, directly under the ‘Genius’ entry. If the entry is not available turn Genius off (‘Store / Turn off Genius’) and on again.

ad 3. and 4. – the iPhone does not show the Genius Mixes…

The Mixes do not show up on you iPhone till you select the Mixes at the sync page of your iPhone. Once the Mixes have been generated there is a new selectable area within the Music-Sync page of the iPhone in your iTunes9. The Mixes are NOT selected automatically – so you will have to select the wanted mixes manually on this page. But be aware – the mixes are large and your iPhone maybe has too less memory free. iTunes then asks you to select automatically music for you. I’ve experienced that then the Mixes are not uploaded to iPhone – instead the iPhone is filled up with music iTunes selects for you! So to ensure Mixes are showing up you will have to manage your memory on the iPhone and select wisely the Mixes via iTunes. If you made it your iPhone finally shows up the brand new iTunes9 Genius Mixes on it – but only in the iPod Music Bar ‘More’ – there is showing up now the ‘Genius-Mixes’ entry where you can select the different Mixes – each Mix on a extra page (use your finger flipping trough).

ad 5. – there are still troubles with the Mixes on the iPhone…

I experienced some issues on using the Mixes on the iPhone – they are performance realted I think. So maybe owners of the new generation of iPhone / iPod touch will not recognize these issues (i’m using a 3G):

• flipping through the Mixes is not working smooth;
• starting a mix takes time… users in a hurry will try to click the Mix again and again till it finally starts;
• after started a mix and flipping BACK in the list of Mix-Pages it is not showing up the first page again – it remains blank;
• some times the music is cluttered on stopping / restarting it

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ad 2. – finally – the Genius Icon showing up on  images at Apple…

maybe you saw these screenys on a Apple page which are showing this nice Genius Icon on the iPhone / iPod touch navigation bar – but not on yours?

Well you are right – it isn’t there – but it’s there if you use the Apple Remote app which is available in the appstore to get access to your iTunes9 on your computer:

I hope this little article helps you a little bit of getting around the troubles you maybe experienced on using iTunes9 / iPhone OS 3.1.

Update: The icon should also be there without using the Apple Remote App on your iPhone /iPod touch – it appeared after a complete reset of my iPhone… so it seems there was an OS update probleme… 🙂