iTunes 8.1 brought us some snazzy improvements to Party Shuffle iTunes DJ and the iPhone’s Remote app. That wasn’t the only iPhone-related improvement, however, as Ars Techica notes, there’s a new feature that used to be reserved for the iPod Shuffle that you can now use for the iPhone: Autofill.

Autofill essentially lets you just fill up the empty space on your iPhone with some randomly chosen music (you can choose to leave some space open for installing apps and the like later on). As somebody who’s not really into constantly creating playlists and managing albums, it’s a nice option. A nice option that’s squirreled away in a pretty difficult to find place.

After the break, we walk you through the steps (courtesy of the Ars Article) screenshot-by-screenshot.

Step 1: Set iTunes to manually manage your music on the iPhone

In the “Summary” tab for the iPhone, check “Manually manage music and videos.” This shouldn’t erase any of the previously-auto-synced music, but it will mean that your previous auto-sync settings won’t work anymore.

Step 2: Find that darn Autofill button

Now that you can manually manage music on your iPhone, you’re free to create playlists on the device, drag and drop albums, the whole shootin’ match. Additionally, you can, yes, autofill the sucker. To do all that, just click the little triangle next to the iPhone to get a drop down of all your device playlists. Select the Music section and then you’ll see your Autofill settings on the lower-right.

Step 3: Adjust Settings

Before you go ahead and auto-fill, you’ll want to take a moment to visit the autofill settings:

The setting for “reserve space for disk use” is a little unclear, as you likely are already using plenty of disk space for your previous video, music, and apps. Adjust as you like to choose how much music you’d like to auto-fill with and then decide whether or not you’d like iTunes to give priority to highly-rated songs. Click ok, click “Autofill” and watch your music fly on into your iPhone.

UPDATED: Macworld put in a call to Apple to find some answers, and find them they did:

“The feature isn’t live yet, but it will be in the coming days.”

ORIGINAL: I asked about this last night on Twitter, and now MacRumors is confirming it. It looks like Apple pulled the Genius Sidebar from Movies and TV Shows just prior to launch. Since it was advertised on Apple’s website (now revised to exclude it) and the release notes themselves, it certainly appears to be a hasty reversal on Apple’s part.

Was it not working? Returning Elektra as a recommended addition to your Batman Begins/Dark Knight collection? Choking on its own “reality show” library?

More as this develops…

One of the new features in Apple’s iTunes 8.1, released just today, is iTunes DJ. Replacing the old Party Shuffle atop the Playlists heap, it also integrates with the Apple Remote app for the iPhone for shiny party goodness.

How does it work? At first look, anyone at your party with the Apple Remote app can request songs from your iTunes library, and everyone with the app can vote for which song gets played when. Genius seems to work with it as well.

Jeremy was kind enough to grab us some screenshots, after the break! If you’ve given it a go already, let us know if you’ve found anything else in there!

Ready. Set. Software Update!

Yes, as expected this morning, Apple has released iTunes 8.1 (and Front Row 2.1.7) with support for the new iPod shuffle 4G with VoiceOver, also tied into the updated Apple Remote app [iTunes link] released earlier today for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Anyone got it yet? Is it really faster, stronger, and better for you? Let us know!

[Thanks to Blake for the tip!]

Apple’s new iPod shuffle 4GB with VoiceOver comes with a little something else: the requirement for iTunes 8.1, which is yet to be released. However, in somewhat uncharacteristic style for Apple, their iTunes product page already has a teaser up for just what we can expect in the (presumably immanent?) new version:

• Speed improvements: iTunes gets a speed boost. Now when it comes to loading large libraries, browsing the iTunes Store, and syncing your devices, iTunes responds faster than before.
• Genius sidebar for movies and TV shows: In addition to music, the Genius sidebar now introduces you to movies and TV shows you might also enjoy.
• Import as iTunes Plus: Automatically import music from your CDs as higher quality, 256-Kbps iTunes Plus files. Watch a tutorial to find out how to

Looks like only tangential love at best for the iPhone — not even any Genius for Apps feature! Anyone find anything particularly compelling?