More iTunes Math

markmcb writes "OmniNerd once again digs into the math behind iTunes. The 5-star ratings in iTunes are actually stored in a variable allowing values from 0 to 100, with 20 = 1-star, 40 = 2-star, etc. Known to few, if you set a rating to 30 (manually), it will show up as 1 1/2 stars in the program's GUI. Matt Schinckel provides interesting statistical evidence showing that not only do non-whole, non-half values (e.g., 47) not increase the amount a song will play, but neither do the half-star ratings (with the exception of .5 star)."

Comments

Re:How does it handle values outside the range?

[CyricZ]

That sounds like something Apple would do: write high-quality software that even resists unexpected tampering.

Indeed, the consumer software world would be far better off if it followed Apple's model. It really makes me wonder how good Windows applications today would be if they had put more effort into developing YellowBox. We might not be faced with a future of slow, resource-intensive .NET applications, but rather small, fast applications written in Objective-C.