Look what Andy found this time!

It is pretty, Andy.

Apple launched their new iPods during the week. No real changes. The Nano looks better definitely. The Touch seems to have gained a little bulk and not a huge amount else.

But one thing has completely taken me by surprise - the Genius system. It's a playlist creator for iTunes and iPods that claims to generate playlists based on a track you pick. You choose a track and Genius will create a playlist of songs that go well with that track.

And, bizarrely, it works. Really well.

It failed a few times to create a pleasing playlist but most times I tried it, it threw back a playlist of stuff that fit perfectly. So perfectly and yet not always obviously so. It left me wondering how the hell they are doing that. It's a really great feature. As long as you're doing it from iTunes with a serious amount of music to choose from (I'm on around 150GB I think at this stage).

The flaw is what happens when it is moved to the Touch, iPhone or Nano - there simply isn't enough room on these devices to hold enough for Genius to fill playlists. So the tracks start to get a little more random. They don't fit as well. It is only as good as the music it has to choose from.

And that's why it seems odd that capacity no longer seems to be a priority for Apple. The 160GB Classic was dropped. There's a 120GB Classic but it is clearly being phased out as it didn't get half of the new features of the tiny Nano. It's on it's way out. And the Touch got no boost in capacity. A shame really because they could have been making such a big deal of this Genius playlist feature otherwise. I'm really impressed with it.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!