Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto

Oh, those crazy cats at Apple, always coming up with something new. Sometimes their obsession with innovation makes me mad, like when they abandon all support for their "old" iPods and stop making accessories for them way too soon. (For the love of God, my iPod is from 2002 -- it's not THAT old, not nearly old enough to get laughed at every time I take it out of my purse in an Apple store!) Also, not that this is my experience, but I'm guessing the folks who just ... bought ... a ... Nano ... are pretty steamed that Apple has already released something -- that video-playing doohickey -- to top it. Ouch.

But then sometimes Apple's great leaps forward make me happy. Like the recent iPod software update that finally made my elderly iPod able to shuffle songs randomly without me having to perform 17 sequential steps in five different menus before giving up and accepting that random shuffling will not happen until I get a Ph.D. Now I just scroll down to "Shuffle songs" on the main menu. Niiiice.

But Apple's newest tactic to part me from my money has me scratching my head. I speak of the "Just for You" feature on the iTunes music store. The idea, it seems, is to give recommendations based on your previous purchases. Kind of like what Amazon does, or really almost any online store, come to think of it. So it's hardly a startling idea, but, well, I'm startled. I'm startled because apparently iTunes thinks that since I purchased Robert Earl Keen's "The Front Porch Song," I would really dig something from "Whitney: The Greatest Hits." You know, as in Whitney Houston. Uh. Yeah. Only slightly less kooky is this: My husband bought "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, because recently, appallingly, we found we did not have it, despite hailing from Alabama (him) and Georgia (me). So iTunes thinks to itself, hmmm, I bet this person would really dig ... Jamie O'Neal, a frighteningly over-tanned pop country singer best-known for the decentish radio hit "There is No Arizona" and the hideous "When I Think About Angels." Hmm.

I guess this is what happens when you let a computer, or an algorithm (whatever the crap that is), try to make judgment calls on music. Just goes to show you robots can never really replace humans. Ha! Take that, robots. (NOTE: It is probably not a good idea for me to taunt robots, considering I live in Japan, world leader in robot technology. If you don't hear from me for a while, you'll know the robots came for me. It was nice knowing you guys.)

Now, a disclaimer: I just having some funs with ol' Apple. The other recommendations in the "Just for You" thingy (which IS labeled beta, by the way, so I imagine they're still working out kinks such as this mysterious Robert Earl Keen/Whitney Houston link) for me were pretty reasonable. For example, I bought a Rachael Yamagata EP on iTunes once, and now they're recommending a KCRW session. Well-played, as I wasn't previously aware of this live radio recording and now am thinking of buying it ("ka-CHING!" says Apple). So that's helpful. And I bought some White Stripes live thingy a while back, and ... HEY WAIT! The robots DID hear me, I guess. Apple seems to have detected I was making fun of it, and while I was typing that last bit my Music Store screen refreshed and now no more "Just for You" anywhere. Hmm. I'm, um. I'm going to go lock my doors now. Yes. And I should probably go ahead and start saving up for a new iPod, since I'm sure mine will blow up next time I try to update it. Grrrreat. See you.