OK I don't know why I feel like blogging everything today, but I just discovered something interesting in iTunes that I never noticed. They have a "Shuffle" function in their controls menu, which I had been using, and really hated because it wasn't really "shuffling" anything - in fact it almost seemed to go out of its way to repeat songs even when I had skipped them the first time. Many upgrades ago I noticed this "Party Shuffle" thing that got added to the playlist bar on the left. I assumed it was some dumb new fluff function they had added because everyone wants stupid unnecessary fluff functions and gizmos and widgets in their UIs. Well the other day I was so fed up with the menu shuffle that I clicked on the Party Shuffle thing. It turns out, this is actually the "good" shuffle function - not only does it actually seem to be not replaying songs over and over, it also seems to try to mix in some songs you obviously like along with some you maybe don't play as much - and seems to get smarter as you go. It also keeps the list so you can save it off if you want.
So my question is why do they have 2 and why not just remove the "old" shuffle as it obviously isn't any good?
For anyone that has read this far, you're a sport :)
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The iTunes shuffle feature has long been a source of user angst. So many people accused Apple of somehow manipulating the "randomness" of the shuffling feature that a while back Steve announced new settings in preferences (edit>preferences>playback) that allow the user to control how "random" the shuffle feature is. You may want to verify it... the nice thing about Party Shuffle is that you can shuffle a playlist or drag desired songs into it and control the order... I rarely use Party Shuffle, but I use the regular one all the time.
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