Exabre announced Wednesday that it was bringing The Filter to the Mac platform. The company, one of Peter Gabriel's many digital-music related ventures, initially released the iTunes playlist generating software for Windows XP in 2006, as well as for some Nokia telephones, but is releasing a fully functional version to the Mac.

The Filter is a standalone application that can generate an iTunes playlist for you based on several criteria. The software scans your iTunes library, and uses Exabre-developed analysis techniques to generate a playlist in one of several ways.

Users can select a few songs (The Filter recommends three) that they enjoy, and a playlist of music The Filter thinks you'll find particularly tasty will be worked up and added to iTunes in short order. The Filter will also add the Playlist to your iPod if it is connected.

It can also generate playlists based on your most played or most recently played tracks, or even for specific activities. The company's example of the latter is: "How often have you had your iPod on shuffle and ended up on the treadmill listening to Joy Division instead of Basement Jaxx? The iPod Refresher function will put an end to this frustration by creating playlists for specific activities, such as getting to work or going to the gym."

Below is a screen shot of a playlist generated by The Filter based on the first four songs you see listed in the playlist.

Sure enough, this playlist meets with this author's approval.
(Click the thumbnail for a larger image)

Also, The Filter will generate iTunes Store links for "missing" or related songs based on your library. It should be noted that the iTunes links that are generated are affiliate links for the company, meaning that Exabre gets a small commission on anything purchased from iTunes when you use those links.

The Filter is a 9MB download, and the software is free. You can run it on Mac OS X, Windows, and various Nokia mobile phones.

[Update: The story was updated to reflect the affiliate information provided to iPO by Exabre.