As I mentioned yesterday, Apple — during the event Tuesday which they also released a revamped versions of their iPods — released the latest version of iTunes, iTunes 8. I have been playing with it for a little bit, and  like what I see.

In the asthetics department, it mostly remains the same, with a new album view (see above pic) and an absolutely psychedelic new visualizer (displays your music in a 3D explosionly of light thing, in time with the song). The main addition to the new version, Genius — the intelligent playlist maker– really is excellent. I select a song i like, such as Welcome to the Black Parade, and iTunes takes my music and makes me a playlist based on it. It happens to work really well and i’ve gotten some sweet playlists. It’s super fast, (like half a second to make it), and is just excellent.

An option that tags along with that — similar to the mini-store in previous iterations of iTune — suggests additional songs for that generated playlist which you dont currently own and takes you directly to the iTunes store to purchase them if you choose. You can also decide to hide the playlist maker, and reconjure it by clicking a button on the right side of the bottom taskbar. After running it through several songs, I find it works quite nicely, though some songs inexplicably refused to work, most notably Disturbia by Rihanna.

Also in the new version is NBC’s return to iTunes, (Heroes is back! Woo-hoo!) the result of a settlement after a lawsuit with Apple several months ago, and the addition of TV shows in Hi-Def, although like the HD movies, they cost more — $3.00 as opposed to $2.00 for standard definition. To download iTunes 8, click here.