So I noted Apple’s introductions yesterday long enough to determine that the “iTunes Phone” sucks donkey balls (100 songs? no matter how much memory you have? cell companies suck) but noticed that they’d released iTunes 5.0, and it has a feature I’ve been dreaming of since it came out (and bugging Apple for): you can shuffle your library by entire albums.
This makes it function like a shuffling CD jukebox that can hold hundreds of CDs, and it’s really good for those of us who listen to album-oriented music. Progressive rock was not really meant to be listened to single-by-single. Classical for damn sure isn’t.
They can also vary the algorithm they use to correct for the statistical likelihood that two songs in a row will be by the same artist.
The iPod nano also looks sweet, but sadly too small for my needs, were I to break down and acquire an iPod. But if you added phone capabilities to an iPod nano, I could get interested…
Sandy Smith 
Yeah, like I’ve said all along, every time I come up with a feature that I’d like to see in jukebox software, iTunes has it in the next release.
I just thought of this one last week, when I found a CD version of Tarkus that I hadn’t listened to in a long time. I’d heard many of the songs recently from compilations and on my iTunes 4 randomizer, but I hadn’t listened to the ALBUM in forever. Now I’m jonesing to hear classic albums like The Yes Album and Fragile (which were lost in the Great CD Robbery) all the way through again. I don’t think I’ve even got “Yours Is No Disgrace” in any format, MP3 or otherwise, right now. 😦
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