I had to download iTunes 9 and look it over, before I could write this review of the latest Apple Event. The iTunes improvements are OK, but I don’t know what special ingredient they are putting into the Starbucks in Cupertino these days, this is not Rock and Roll, and I don’t like it.

All this version of iTunes is about, is selling more iTunes product. The sharing with your family (and why is the man of the house named Steve?) thing is long overdue, the Genius Mixing song selector (I think the supreme Court should pass a law that makes it illegal for Apple to use the term Genius for at least five years) is pure evil, and the obnoxious new iTunes features presentation, that repeats the word iTunes every three words (ARRRRGHHHH, made me feel like strangling the morons that produced this over the top piece of fluffy nonsense). OK, I feel better now that I got that off my chest.

I really get the feeling that something went badly wrong when Steve came back to the company. I mean that poor guy who took over in his place was not even asked to be on the stage. This Event looked like it had been put together in the last couple of days, right after Steve dumped all the product and promo material, that was supposed to be used at this Event, into a gigantic trash can in his office and executed a Secure Empty Trash. The new iPod Shuffle colors were probably the result of using the Magic Markers highlighters Steve had on his desk at the time, on the shiny silver ones.

Hopefully there will be another Event really soon, one that will address the computer side of the company. I mean seriously, if Apple is now going to concentrate on iPod Touch “game machines”, we might be in for a long winter. Meanwhile I am still in need of a small computer for storing my digital image files when I am on location and traveling, and the store down the road from me has Acer Netbooks starting at just over $200.

Apple Premieres iTunes 9
Featuring iTunes LP, Home Sharing, Genius Mixes & Improved Syncing

SAN FRANCISCO—September 9, 2009—Apple® today introduced iTunes® 9, the latest version of the world’s most popular software application to purchase, manage and play media, packed with innovative features such as iTunes LP, Home Sharing and Genius Mixes, as well as a redesigned store and improved syncing. iTunes 9 makes it easier than ever to discover, purchase and enjoy your music, movies, TV shows, and apps for iPhone™ and iPod touch® from Apple’s revolutionary App Store. Plus, Home Sharing now lets you easily transfer songs, movies and TV shows to other computers in your home.

“iTunes 9 is a great iTunes release, with innovative features that make using iTunes better than ever and iTunes content richer than ever,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iTunes LP, for example, lets artists share more of their creativity with fans and gives music lovers the feeling of being immersed in an entire album with art, lyrics, liner notes, photos and videos.”

iTunes LP is the next evolution of the music album delivering a rich, immersive experience for select albums on the iTunes Store by combining beautiful design with expanded visual features like live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, album credits and more. iTunes LP debuts today with albums including Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited,” Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me,” The Grateful Dead’s “American Beauty” and Dave Matthews Band’s “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King: iTunes Pass.” The new iTunes Extras provides a similar experience for movies on iTunes with features including documentaries, deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries. iTunes Extras is now available for select movies including “Twilight,” “Batman Begins,” “WALL-E,” “Iron Man” and “The Da Vinci Code.” Customers can enjoy iTunes LP and iTunes Extras on a Mac® or PC.

iTunes 9 also introduces Home Sharing, which lets you easily transfer music, movies and TV shows among up to five authorized computers in your home. Family members can now view up to five iTunes libraries on their home network, see only the portion of these libraries they don’t already have, import their favorite content directly to their own libraries, and automatically add new purchases from other computers into their library.

The incredibly popular Genius feature gets even better with Genius Mixes which are created using the results of over 27 million music libraries with over 54 billion songs that have been submitted and analyzed by Genius. The new Genius Mixes feature is like having a “Genius” DJ that automatically generates up to 12 endless mixes of songs from your iTunes library that go great together.

With improved syncing in iTunes 9 and iPhone OS 3.1, you can now organize your iPhone apps right in iTunes and they will automatically appear on your iPhone with the same layout. Plus, syncing music, photos, movies and TV shows is easier than ever with the added ability to sync music by artist and genre and sync photos by Events and Faces. The iTunes Store on iPhone now features precut ringtone downloads with over 20,000 ringtones priced at just $1.29.

iTunes 9 is available immediately as a free download at www.itunes.com.