I finally took the time last night to setup the Genius Playlist option for my iPhone. Basically the Genius playlist option now lets Apple generate a playlist with songs in the same fashion that Pandora does for it’s Internet Radio streams.

For example, I selected the new Ben Folds song Hiroshima and it created the following playlist based on the songs that are on my iPod:

1. Ben Folds – Hiroshima
2. William Shatner – It Hasn’t Happened Yet
3. Counting Crows – A Murder of One
4. Weezer – Only In Dreams
5. R.E.M. – Bad Day
6. Beck – Loser
7. The Offspring – Hammerhead
8. Cake – The Distance
9. Tom Petty – The Waiting
10. Ben Folds – Give Judy My Notice
11. Blues Traveler – Hook
12. Steve Miller Band – Take The Money and Run
13. Beck – Where It’s At
14. They Might Be Giants – Particle Man
15. Counting Crows – Raining in Baltimore
16. Weezer – Surf Wax America
17. R.E.M. – Imitation of Life
18. Oasis – Hey Now!
19. Green Day – Long View
20. No Doubt – Spider Webs
21. Disturbed – Down With the Sickness
22. Ben Folds – Rock This Bitch
23. Tom Petty – American Girl
24. Beck – Devil’s Haircut
25. William Shatner – That’s Me Trying

So as you can see, not only do I have a pretty diverse selection of music on my iPhone but the Genius Playilst generation is pretty smart! Big ups to Apple adding this because it’s 2008 and the ‘shuffle’ feature is soooooo 1995

I suggest everyone give it a shot! It does take a bit of time though. My modest selection of ~600 took about ten minutes to generate the information for. I’m not sure if this had anything to do with data transfer speeds because I was using my MacBook Pro over wireless while the music resided on my NAS.

Also as an additional point I have to also say that I’m a big fan of the new Ben Folds album, Way To Normal. This is probably one of the more FUN records he’s put out since Rockin’ The Suburbs in 2001. A few choice tracks are (of course) Hiroshima and also Bitch Went Nuts.

Ben Folds - Way To Normal

Also as a little window into my life, Ben Folds – The Luckiest was our wedding song. It WAS going to be Andrew W.K. – Really In Love … but we changed it at the last minute in an effort to not take years off my in-laws life