Many people turning Genius off
Last week’s brief two-line tip explaining how to disable the new Genius sidebar in iTunes 8 continues to generate a surprising amount of search traffic. From that, you might loosely conclude that:
- Many people don’t like Genius
- Apple needs to make it clearer how to turn Genius off
What people are Googling for: turn off genius, disable genius, disable itunes genius, turn off itunes genius, disable genius itunes, turn off genius in itunes
Funny, I think Genius is the best feature added to iTunes and the iPod since the first version.
I have a feeling people don’t like the genius sidebar. However, the only way to turn it off is to click the hide genius sidebar button. Frantically searching through the menubar will yield no results.
The genius playlist feature is non obtrusive and most people will not turn that off. Its just the Genius sidebar (or the rebranded store) that can use up valuable real estate.
I prefer to engage such things as a choice, rather than have them plastered to my eyeballs by nefarious forces. I get that it’s all about marketing… make the right suggestions and people will buy more stuff. I get that it’s also about making things easy for the least savvy user to handle so as to mitigate support costs. But I’m also getting very, VERY tired of apps that take up a ton of headspace, default to their most intrusive versions (that cute sound is obnoxious by the fifth repetition), and are worse than viruses to remove or scale back. Hiding the “turn off” option doesn’t make me respect you in the morning…
Goobi, perhaps you’re right that people dislike the genius sidebar more than they dislike the entire genius feature.
I am still having a hard time with all of this negative genius coverage. Up until now, complainers haven’t even mentioned that you can simply hide the sidebar.
I updated iTunes, initiated genius, and then hid the sidebar . . . in a matter of moments . . . it was really simple. Since then I have not seen one “up-sell” or advertisement or intrusion. I have enjoyed the genius playlist functionality and it has helped me rediscover songs in my library.
I don’t see how the “hide” option is hidden. Every time you want to use genius to make a playlist, you have to click on the genius icon button in the bottom right of iTunes. The “hide sidebar” button is . . . wait for it . . . RIGHT NEXT TO IT!!! How could anyone possible use the playlist feature even once and not see the ONLY OTHER BUTTON??!!
So, in summary, there is no need to “disable genius” or “turn off genius” (unless you have some paranoid fear about sharing “information about your library” with Apple). Just hide the sidebar, quit whining about how it is all a scam to make money, and enjoy the useful new feature . . .
Mmm, I really like the Genius feature in iTunes 8. I see myself clicking the propositions. AND I see myself listening and buying new stuff. Not with millions at the time
but I can see more sales in the iTunes Store.
But it’s a good thing that you can choose, on or off.
In fact, there **IS** a command to turn Genius on and off– it’s in the **Store** menu in iTunes.
The Genius sidebar is quite annoying and can easily be turned off. I love the Genus playlists however, another nice way to explore your own music collection and another nice way to explore music of the mood I’m currently in. Pity it can only work with pop music and not with the other half of music in my collection: classical music; not asily solved because there are no naming conventions for albums of classical music.
I can’t turn off the damn genious. It keeps crashing down the program when it tries to send my information to I Tunes. How do I turn it off for good and forever. The Turn it Off Button located in the Store menu seem is NOT working at all. It is off (like if it was hidden or something) Please help!!!!
Yeah people who use there laptop for itunes but have all there music on a NAS drive GENIUS is a pain. It hangs and hangs. I hope theres an update soon. And nothing wrong with my network, brand new, newest itunes, and laptop new. Might be the 21,000 tracks i have on the NAS.
Gilbert,
Genius crashes my ITunes too when it tries to send my information to ITunes. To turn it off, first close your internet connection before opening ITunes so that Genius will not activate and crash while you are trying to turn it off. With your internet connection closed, open ITunes.
Then, click on the Genius icon on the left hand side of the screen and select “Open”.
Once Genius is open, click on “Store” and the “Turn Genius Off” option will be available for selection (if Genius is not Open, the Turn Genius Off option cannot be selected).
This feature was poorly conceived and designed. Ironic that Apple named it “Genius”.
Guys I have been using the net for over ten years, and I can’t believe I’m saying this but even after reading your instructions, I still don’t know how to disable Genius!!!
Dan, I’ve followed your instructions specifically and with the internet connection closed, I simply cannot open Genius nor can I open the itunes store.
Why is it that I have to go to the itunes store to disable Genius anyway!? How unbelievably counter-intuitive. And those tiny tiny tiny buttons below genius were invisible to my eye before I read about them on this page.
PS to all fans of Genius: It’s not the intrusion that I dislike about genius, it’s how much it has single-handedly slowed my entire computer down (a very new macbook, if you must know). This is an application to people who either obsessively download music or need a program to tell them what type of music they would probably like. I have friends for that, thanks very much.
Arsalan, when Dan said “Click on Store”, he meant click on the Store menu, at the top of the screen. You don’t have to go to the Apple Store to turn Genius off.
> he meant click on the Store menu, at the top of the screen.
then what!?!?
which menu item? it’s really not obvious
I have several thousand songs and the genius results take FOREVER to update when I plug in my iPod. Simply turning off the sidebar so that I don’t see the does not solve the problem.
How about making the update optional? I usually plug in my iPod five minutes before leaving for work so that I can update podcasts. I don’t want a genius update. I want it to finish asap so that I can hit the road.
This is horrible – apple are looking increasingly corporate and unpleasant with this kind of marketing lead feature. Maybe PCs are cool after all.
Dan had it correct, I VJ and have over 40 thousands songs and videos, takes forever to have genius running. I simply turned off airport then opened the genius bar went t store clicked turn off, and, viola done!
….or – you can click “help” type “genius” and there is an option shown to turn Genius on or off. It is in the menus – but you guys obviously don’t like to use those…
…and help is just what it says on the box.
well i finally did turn Genius off,click on the main menu at the very top of the window where you read (file,edit,view,controls,STORE,advanced and help)click on store and the click turn genius off and thats it! it was really easy just confussing. good luck to all
I have a question…..Why does the “8 Gig” Ipod Nano I just bought only have 7.42 gigs of actual memory? Since when did 7.42 gigs round up to 8? Also, why is it acceptable to round up memory at all, even if it was 7.5 gigs?
My 16GB iPod touch has 14.52GB of memory. That definately doesn’t round up to 16.
I wouldn’t mind Genius so much except that everything else in iTunes has to wait while it does its synching when I start up iTunes. I’m turning Genius off.
I want iTunes Genius completely gone from my computer, not just ’shut off’. When it is ‘on’ it freezes iTunes and crashes my computer!! It’s the worst automatic application ever by Apple. I always have the option of off selected, and it appears to randomly turn on after so many times of going to iTunes and I don’t realize it until it has frozen……It should be an option to install, not a part of an upgrade!!
Any suggestions on how to completely get rid of it?
There is no off position on the Genius switch.
The problem isn’t that everyone is stupid and read or figure out how to turn Genius off, it’s that it seems to react differently to certain computers. I can read. I know how to turn the darn thing off–it just won’t let me. I initially selected to turn it off. Then one day it was suddenly back on when I opened iTunes. Now, whenever I open iTunes it immediately says “Genius Accessing iTunes Store” but it never finishes updating or sending the info and when I try to go to the store while it’s doing that I just get stuck on the white iTunes Store screen forever. And since it won’t connect to the store I cannot turn Genius off. Ever, apparently. Nor can I get any song info oralbum artwork or buy anything with my remaining iTunes store balance which is now rendered useless. Now I’m stuck with a program with which only half of the features work. That’s ‘Genius’ alright.
You don’t need to go to the iTunes Store – you need to go to the MENU item named “Store” (that’s at the top of your iTunes window between “Controls” and “Advanced”). Then select “Turn Off Genius”. The sidebar has nothing to do with turning on/off genius.
“you need to go to the MENU item named “Store”…Then select “Turn Off Genius”. ”
sounds great. except that menu item is disabled while Genius is updating. and Genius never stops updating.
iTunes has become total crap.
I hear ya. It’s amazing to me that the people who don’t have a problem have a hard time believing those that do. I have the same trouble with itunes Genius – it’s rendered the whole program completely useless.