Apple has done it again!

Apple launched a bunch of new things yesterday. New iPods, movies download, a new set top box that will wirelessly transmit your dowloaded movies to your TV set. But the thing that I found the coolest was the new iTunes 7. There's nothing new really, and ultimately it's just another gimmick but it's fantastic. Now there's one feature called "Cover Flow" that lets you browse through your CD collection just as you would with actual CDs. If you happen to have an iTunes account the album covers will be automatically downloaded to your computer. In case you don't have an iTunes account, which is my case (Singapore still doesn't have an iTunes store), you can do it manually. It will take some time, a couple of hours maybe, depending on your collection size, and you'll be able to flip through the images, just as you would when looking for a CD in your physical collection.
What it does is change the way you "consume" your song (at least when you're listening to music on your computer). Before you would just look through you song list, only words and names. Now you have the images. And oh boy, it makes a whole lot of difference. For me, it brought a new layer of memories, places I went to, things I did when I bought a particular CD, and just plain little things that easily took me away from my work. Distracted as I'm, I spent countless hours, way too many, updating my cover images. You can find the images either in www.amazon.com, or in my case, www.submarino.com.br, for the Brazilian CDs, and www.cdjapan.co.jp for my Japanese CDs. Google also has an excellent music search that lets you view all the CD covers and the song lists for an artist. Then it's only a "drag and drop" process. Easy.