Q&A: Observing the Genius at Work

Q.

Every so often when I open iTunes, I see it displaying a message about “sending Genius results to Apple.” What does this mean?

A.

The “Genius” is a feature that analyzes your musical tastes based on the songs in your iTunes library. It uses that information to automatically construct playlists based around a certain song or mixes of songs from a specific musical genre. The Genius also collects information from your iTunes library — including the song titles, artists, user ratings, play counts and other data — and uploads it to a huge database of other iTunes Genius users on Apple’s servers.

Algorithms are applied to this collected information and the results are used to recommend new music in the iTunes Store that may match your personal tastes a bit more closely. The MIT Technology Review site has a detailed post about the basic science behind the iTunes Genius. (Netflix is another company that uses similar methods to suggest new movies and TV shows for its users to watch, based on previous viewing habits, and has even held competitions for people to help improve its recommendation algorithm.)

The iTunes Store Terms and Conditions document states that information it collects from your iTunes library “will be stored anonymously and will not be associated with your name or account.” Apple’s privacy policy also explains what information the company is collecting.

While the iTunes Genius feature may sound a bit invasive, it is also optional and you can always disable it in the program’s settings; some users have found that having the Genius turned on also slows down iTunes. To decline the help of the Genius, open iTunes, go to the Store menu and select Turn Off Genius.