During his keynote speech in San Francisco tonight, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the immediate availability of iTunes 10. The latest version of Apple’s media player and organiser features an enhanced List View which automatically replaces album names with a thumbnail of the album art, where five or more tracks from the album are present in iTunes’ Library.
The biggest new feature, however, is Ping, which Jobs described as a ‘social network for music.’ The CEO explained that Apple had worked hard over a period of time to make discovering music in iTunes easier. Everything from the layout of the Store to the Genius feature had been designed with this in mind. Ping is that latest tool to make discovering new music easy.
When Ping is enabled, iTunes users can ‘follow’ other users who have enabled Ping. They can then find out what the friends they are following are listening to and what they’ve recently downloaded, as well as concerts they plan to attend. Artists can create Ping streams to allow fans to follow them and find out what they’re listening to, as well as where and when they are playing live. Ping playlists are created from a top 10 listing of songs and albums from people you follow.
Jobs was keen to point out that Ping is optional and and users can choose to approve those who follow them. ‘You can get as private or as public as you want,’ he told attendees.
iTunes 10 also features a new icon. Gone is the CD, to mark the fact, said Jobs, that next Spring the number of iTunes downloads is set to surpass CD sales.
