Over the last month Apple has released several updates to iTunes and the iPhone firmware. Most notably is the addition of Genius which is essentially Pandora for you personal music library. Select an artist/song, then Genius will make a smart playlist with other similar songs. I was a bit skeptical at first but after using it a bit I’m pretty impressed. What I like most is that Genius works on your iPhone too, perfect for making quick playlists while you’re driving instead of fiddling around trying to find stuff you wanna listen to.

The other cool addition is the new visualization included in iTunes 8 based on Robert Hodgin’s work with Processing. Here’s a sample…