Tip: Update Genius in iTunes 9 to Access Genius Mixes

Tim Cox ()

iTunes-1

After learning of iTunes 9 becoming available by repeatedly clicking  ”Check Now” on Software Update for the past couple of hours, I installed the update and immediately went for the Genius Mixes feature.

It wasn’t there.

Turns out, and yes this is an obvious tip, you have to “Update Genius” in the iTunes to activate the Genius Mix.

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At this point, I’m not really impressed with mixes. It seems to be based off of the track music genre, so I have a mix called Blues Mix 4 including Sigur Rós, Explosions in the Sky and Frou Frou: definitely not Blues but that’s what I have listed in the track info. I’m still playing with the bubble wrap, so I’ll post more thoughts soon.

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About the author

Tim CoxTim Cox is big time into coffee, craft beer, Super Street Fighter IV, and Apple products. He lives in Brooklyn with his loving wife and 5 beautiful kitties. He keeps track of the stuff he googles, gives advice on web marketing, and is pretty big on Twitter. He never updates his personal blog.

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  • Marc

    Cool feature and Woo some Jeff Buckey, Grace in the mix

  • Jesse

    Figured that you need to update Genius, however, it doesn’t work, I constantly get errors stating the network connection timed out.. Will try later, seems the servers Apple is using are pretty busy atm.

  • Rob K

    Hmm, updated Genius but I’m still not seeing the Genius Mixes option — odd.

  • Rutger

    i found that to..
    Works like a charm, and you can synch them to your iPhone to!

  • http://miladinoski.com Miladinoski

    Thanks for the tip, I didn’t notice that and was wondering why amen’t I presented with that option :\

  • http://medevyoujane.com Jon Gretar

    @Jesse: I have the same problem. A few people seem to be having it. For others this just runs easily through.

  • Mike

    Great tip, thanks! Now, to get those Genius mixes onto your device, you’ll need to choose them from the Playlists list under the Music tab when your device is connected to iTunes. Would’ve been nice if Apple documented all this!

  • alvareo

    And why on earth do you have Sigur Rós tagged as Blues?

  • http://timncox.com Tim Cox

    @alvareo, I’ve never bothered updating the genre info for my iTunes music library. Apparently I need to get on that.

  • http://Pitchfork.com Pitchfork.com

    Thank you for listening to nothing except for music which I, pitchfork.com, recommend. You are a member of an elite group of people with incredible taste in music.

  • Jordon

    i have turn it on and off updated it and many other things. And it still does not have an icon under Genius saying ‘Genius Mixes’. Could you please help me?

  • Eduardo

    I can’t see genius mixes on the iPod Classic. Does it work on this model?

  • http://www.avolio.com/ Fred Avolio

    Good tip. Obviously, from the comments here, and the Apple ipod touch discussion forum, a lot of people could not get this to work. Apple should provide a tech article with step-by-step instructions.

    -fred

  • http://medevyoujane.com Jon Gretar

    Also… If people are having the “network connection timed out” error they will have to open up Safari and search for all cookies with “apple” in it and delete.

  • Paul

    To sync the genius mixes, you have to ensure that you have checked the sync music tab in the device menu bar. However, this will delete all other music if you have manually managed music before.

  • steve

    So this means if I have not purchased music from iTunes store I will not have Genius mix?

  • Jordan

    i have the same thing where i updated Genius but it’s not showing up in the left sidebar. help?

  • aaron

    i tried that 5 times now it still hasen’t worked
    this didnt work for me but you might want to try
    1. going to the store menu
    2. clicking turn off genius
    3. turn on genius

  • Nigel

    Genius mix looks good by Rock mix contains stuff I have genred as Blues. Can’t work out how to fix it.

  • greta

    So I have an iPod classic, 160gb… I don’t have all the music I like on my computer, so I manually manage it. Does this mean I won’t be able to use the Genius on my iPod unless I want to go back to the other 2 computers I have music from and resync all 3 computers’ music??? Please tell me there is a way I can use Genius on my iPod without having to deal with the hours of syncing music from 3 computers… again.