Apple iTunes 8.0 available for download

New features moves software from 7 to 8

9 September 2008 18:12 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Steve Jobs has announced a new version of iTunes today at the company's "Let's Rock" event in California.

iTunes 8 will offer HDTV shows, the rumoured "Genius" feature as well as new browsing options.

Genius will, like The Filter software from Peter Gabriel, allow you to automatically match songs together in your music collection based on beat or tempo.

Users will, at the press of a button create a playlist with 25, 50 or 100 songs from their collection.

Hoping to sell even more songs through the iTunes store, iTunes 8 will take the software algorithms one step further by offering you tracks that would suit your collection from the iTunes store to buy.

The information, which Apple say will be anonymous, will pool the data from all the users in a peer-2-peer network approach.

"The software will get better as more and more people upload song data", said Jobs.

New browsing features will give you the ability to view songs by album art similar to the iPhoto interface.

Spouting figures that included 8.5 million music tracks, 2600 movies and over 3000 applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, the download store boasts 65 million accounts.

Claiming the number one spot, the new iTunes will offer HD movies for $1 on top of the cost of the standard version.

Finally Jobs announced that the company has managed to woo back NBC to the iTunes store in the US.

"NBC is coming back to iTunes", said Jobs making old news sound new.