Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

iTunes 8 has a new feature called Genius. Gizmodo says, “In time, Genius playlists should get more useful, but I think I’ll still stick to Pandora when I want to mix things up.” However, I’m pretty satisfied with them, as they provide a non-linear way to dig into related music in your library. For example, Eric Clapton’s classic Old Love brings up a bunch of oldies, as well as some other Eric Clapton / Cream tunes:

If I feel like pop, picking Danity Kane explodes more pop:

And an Ice Cube song brings the hilarity:

iTunes 8 is definitely psychic!

Reading Spat with Rogers leaves Canadian Apple stores without iPhones on Apple Insider leaves me with a sense of unease. It’s certainly Apple’s right to send shipments of the highly desired iPhone 3G where it wants, but to screw an entire country because it doesn’t like the action of one carrier won’t help it’s reputation with Canadians, who now suffer arbitrarily:

Apple, disgusted with Rogers Wireless for dumping egregious service plans on would-be iPhone 3G buyers, has decided that its Canadian retail stores will have no part in helping the carrier market the new handset to customers, AppleInsider has learned.

As a result, Canadian Apple Retail stores won’t be selling the new 3G touchscreen phones come Friday, representatives for the Cupertino-based company said during a private conference call on Monday evening. Instead, it will be up to Rogers and its partner Fido to lock subscribers into steep 3-year contracts that require a minimum monthly payment of $60 for just 150 minutes, 75 text messages, and 400MB of data.

So because Apple doesn’t like Rogers’ unfair pricing, they’re not going to sell their phones in Canada, with this snarky quote “We have nothing to do with the service plans. Those are Rogers’ plans.” On the other hand, iPhone Atlas suggests that Apple never intended to sell the iPhone 3G at any retail location, which would make this fight nothing but FUD.

Do you think they look alike at all?