Tim Samoff // Weblog (old)

July 07, 2006

Another plea for iTunes (and iPods)...

A while back, I posted a “plea” for an iTunes feature. Well, that feature has still not been implemented in any form or fashion, but Doug Kaye‘s suggestion (using the .m4b format instead of the .m4a format), in the comments, is a close second. (Speaking of the comments for that post, there are a couple of comments there that I never saw — and a couple of missing ones too… Arg!)

But, that’s all beside the point.

My new plea is very different and, in my opinion, pretty crucial.

In iTunes, it is very easy to create playlists for all variety of listening tastes. Another feature that iTunes provides is the ability to create Smart Playlists.

Smart Playlists are similar to regular playlists — they contain songs that a user chooses — but they allow the user to add a layer of logic to how the songs are chosen. For example, if I wanted iTunes to automatically include every song with a specific name, or by a particular artist, or from a certain date to a playlist without having to search out every one of those songs, I could create a Smart Playlist and set up a rule (or rules) that will automatically do that for me. Personally, I have a number of Smart Playlists that do a number of different things for me.

Here is where the major issue arises. There is a cool little feature that iTunes and iPods possess: Party Shuffle. Basically, Party Shuffle randomizes every audio file contained on an iPod. This is, in essence, just like the “Shuffle” button on any CD player. But, in Party Shuffle exists the fatal flaw (and something I’ve already mentioned): it plays every audio file contained on an iPod.

My iPod contains much more than just music. I’m (slowly) trying to learn how to speak Japanese for example. My Japanese lessons are spread out over about a hundred audio files, all ranging from five to fifteen minutes long. I transfer a bunch of my favorite Podcasts over to my regular playlists so that when I update my Podcast feeds, I don’t loose certain ones that I’d like to save. These can be anywhere from ten minutes to an hour and a half long.

So, when I’m out listening to music on my iPod, sometimes I like to have it select songs at random — i.e., I press Play on Party Shuffle. But, knowing the way that Party Shuffle works, I’ll bet you can guess what comes next… Right in the middle of getting my groove on (as it were), up pops a ten minute Japanese lesson.

Not what I wanted to hear.

My idea for getting around this dilemma was simple: I’d create a Smart Playlist that contained all of my music files and none of my spoken word files… In fact, I went one step further and added a rule that didn’t include any songs over six minutes long (sometimes, I’m just not in the mood for a twenty-minute jam to come on, if you know what I mean). But, knowing that I’d never want to start listening to the thousands of songs on my iPod at the same song every time, I figured that I’d just make my Smart Playlist choose songs at random — there is a “Selected by Random” feature in the Smart Playlist edit window afterall.

But, no… It’s not that simple.

It turns out that the “Selected by Random” feature in the Smart Playlist edit window only means that iTunes will randomly select the songs that are chosen for the Smart Playlist the first time the playlist is created. From there on out, unless one changes the settings on their Smart Playlist to have the playlist created again, the playlikst will always contain the same songs in the same order that the playlist was created.

Come on! That’s not very smart now is it?

The bottom line is this: Smart Playlists are very cool. They take a lot of work out of searching for specific songs and help in creating some pretty cool playlists. But, without the option to randomize thse Smart Playlists, I almost feel like the option of creating the playlists is completely useless. Why is Party Suffle the only way to randomize the music contained in iTunes or on my iPod? Shouldn’t there be another way?

And, to let you know, I’ve searched without end in finding a solution to this. Even my Mac Genius friend said he didn’t know of a way to do this.

So, please Apple Computer, give us a way to randomize our Smart Playlists.

Posted at 09:38 am

Trackback Link:

Leif ~ Thanks for clarifying that. Yeah, your suggestion works, but it sure isn’t very elegant — which, of course, is Apple’s fault, not yours!

Scissor ~ Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate it! And, by the looks of your site, your stuff isn’t too shabby either!

timsamoff () (URL) - July 10, 2006 at 06:26 am

I was just thinking about you, Wheat!

Thanks for the info… I don’t think I ever knew about the “Skip when shuffling” option!

As for the ““shuffle by song” setting in the iPod preferences” part… So, does this make every playlist “random”? I don’t know if I’ve ever set this setting.

timsamoff () (URL) - July 10, 2006 at 1:13 pm