Nova (audio by Helios) from flight404 on Vimeo.
The rumor mill’s conventional wisdom is that iTunes 8 will be part of Apple’s music-themed press event next week. That’s a safe bet — iTunes 7 is clearly due for an update. But Allan White has some interesting speculation with which I’m inclined to agree. There’s an excellent change Robert Hodgin’s excellent Magnetosphere visualizer is going to become an official visualizer for iTunes 8. That’s be a big win for Processing (site | cdmo tag), the visual code “sketching” tool — and a likely time suck for your productivity next week, if true, as you stare into its hypnotic pulsing orbs. (Just fair warning.)
Allan White writes on his blog — a lovely visit for fans of music and visualization:
[Robert] Hodgins built a wonderful iTunes visualizer called Magnetosphere a while back – which mysteriously disappeared from his site a few months back. I wrote him, and he said that it had been sold to a third party. There’s strong evidence that this third party is in fact Apple, and that it may ship with iTunes 8, which could be shown as soon as next week at an iPod Event.
iTunes 8 Rumors: is Magnetosphere the New Visualizer?
One way or another, it looks like we will be getting the visualizer. And getting it officially would be terrific — it’s about time the fairly moribund world of visualizers was reignited. (Just remember, musicians, work with a real VJ/visualist when playing live for the full experience. End public service announcement.)
Magnetosphere Video
(Above, a reskinned take on the original — Robert does wonderful things with iterating his code)
Magnetosphere iTunes Plugin Page
Flight404 on Create Digital Motion
Peter – thank you! That magnetosphere link is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It's made me want to learn about Processing. Bravo!
Why doesnt the idea of iTunes v8 fill my heart with joy the same way the prospect of ableton LIVE 8.0 might? (if only they finally implement 5.1)
I guess its because each itunes update is more about implementing new ways of selling (DRM & all) whereas live is about making stuff….
[…] this is one of those instances. While reading a digital music blog posting about the rumored next iTunes plugin, I found out about Magnetosphere: an amazingly […]
i HOPE this rumor proves to be true! I have the old version of this visualizer installed and it is truly mesmerizing and beautiful no matter what is playing. Robert does great work in this field.
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Thanks for the attribution, Peter – and nice chatting with you yesterday. Robert's work deserves the attention and credit.
A lot of the comments around this idea online are tempered with frustration at iTunes – valid feelings IMHO. I'd really love to see a stand-alone version of Magnetosphere someday (and, oh, pipe it into Quartz Comps while I'm at it…).
PS – why doesn't my Gravatar show up here? It does elsewhere.
I'd be more impressed if apple removed the malware junk from itunes. Ever uninstalled that app? absolute pita.
[…] 8.0 Early doubts left this rumor hanging, but it’s now back stronger than ever with recent claims explaining iTunes 8.0 will hit later today, with new features including Grid View, Genius […]
well…nice job Robert…hope you got a nice chunk of change from Apple for this. Looks beautiful
[…] [via Create Digital Music] […]
[…] details soon. Here’s a video of Magnetosphere in action, it’s pretty much the new visualizer… and here’s a rumor about it from earlier in the […]
[…] a video of Magnetosphere in action, it’s pretty much the new visualizer… and here’s a rumor about it from earlier in the […]
GO Robert!!! That is some really good news. Magnetosphere is exactly the piece of code that got me into dabbling with Processing.
I'm curious how Magnetosphere got in there if it was a processing app.. All the iTunes visualizers I have seen have been Quartz Compositions.
[…] details soon. Here’s a video of Magnetosphere in action, it’s pretty much the new visualizer… and here’s a rumor about it from earlier in the […]
[…] For anyone who’s been following vj.tv for the last year, it’s clear I plug Mr. 404Â often. My reasons are obvious: Processing is hard, it’s difficult to make outstanding finished pieces, let alone something that catches the eye. […]
[…] number of individuals are speculating that Flight 404’s Magnetosphere iTunes visualizer is likely to be […]