No Shuffle Albums feature in iPhone?

[polishpunk68]

I've been looking for this feature for a while now. In my nano I had this feature turned on about 90% of the time, mostly when I listen at work. Now it seems I can only listen to one album at a time.. I can't even listen to all albums of a given artist grouped by album, it only goes with songs in alphabetical order.

Am I doing something wrong?

This is very disappointing if these features have been stripped out of the iPhone's iPod.

[ayasinsk]

why would u shuffle albums, sounds dumb

[Surf Monkey]

why would u shuffle albums, sounds dumb


Dumb enough that iPod has had the feature for ages.

[iMagic]

You can't play all albums by an artist? Shuffle albums isn't that useful, but it doesn't help to do away with it. They call it the "best iPod" because it has the useless coverflow but not the more useful search feature found in the latest iPods.

[Surf Monkey]

You can't play all albums by an artist? Shuffle albums isn't that useful, but it doesn't help to do away with it. They call it the "best iPod" because it has the useless coverflow but not the more useful search feature found in the latest iPods.


They call it the "best iPod" because their marketing focus groups tell them that people respond to that. It's obvious from using the device that it's not the best iPod ever made. FAR from it.

[jhollington]

You can't play all albums by an artist? Shuffle albums isn't that useful, but it doesn't help to do away with it. They call it the "best iPod" because it has the useless coverflow but not the more useful search feature found in the latest iPods.
Actually, you can play all albums by an artist, you just can't shuffle them in "Album" mode (meaning you can't play all of the tracks from a single album and then randomly select the next one).

In fact, you can't even play them sequentially unless you add them to an "On-The-Go" playlist.

To play all tracks by an artist directly, you would select the "Artist" menu, select the artist you want to listen to, and then choose "All Songs." This will, however, play the songs in alphabetical order, regardless of album organization.

If you want to play them by album, you can go to the On-The-Go playlist and start adding tracks to it. From there, you would select the artist you wanted, and choose "Add All Albums" (which will add them in sequential/alphabetical order, but at least the tracks will be grouped by album, rather than playing alphabetically).

As for the "Search" feature, I'm guessing that Apple figured with only 8GB of storage to play with, the "Search" feature wasn't a priority. Something like that may come in the future (it would be a natural fit for a device with an actual keyboard, after all), or they may be saving it for the actual next-generation iPod device.

They call it the "best iPod" because their marketing focus groups tell them that people respond to that. It's obvious from using the device that it's not the best iPod ever made. FAR from it.
They call it the "best iPod" because Apple measures these things in terms of cool factor and interface design, and really they always have. From that point of view, they're actually right, but of course it's missing many features that have been staples of the older-generation iPod models for a very long time.

On the other hand, there really are things that it does far better. On-The-Go playlist management is probably the most noticeable in this regard (the ability to easy add/remove tracks and even reorder them directly on the device), although the touchscreen features for navigating a very large library are also superior to the clickwheel method, IMHO.

However, things like "Shuffle Albums," hard button controls, proper compilation groupings, and obvious limited capacity make it far from an ideal iPod device. I just keep reminding myself that it's supposed to be primarily a phone (although it's not particularly great at that either)... :)

[polishpunk68]

well this is really disappointing to hear, looks like there's no point in getting rid of my nano because I'll still use it since its a more featured ipod than the iphone...
However, things like "Shuffle Albums," hard button controls, proper compilation groupings, and obvious limited capacity make it far from an ideal iPod device. I just keep reminding myself that it's supposed to be primarily a phone (although it's not particularly great at that either)...
After owning it for not even a week, I too, have to remind myself that its primarily a phone. Even that is missing a few key features, like distinguishing between incoming and outgoing calls in call history. Every cell phone I had in the past had that feature, why not iPhone?

[Surf Monkey]

On the other hand, there really are things that it does far better.


There are things it does FAR worse too. The way it handles smart playlists for example. It doesn't update smart playlists on the fly. In fact, you're lucky if it even updates smart playlists from iTunes correctly. I have two that the iPhone doesn't load with the correct songs , EVER. Further, it's cool that it asks you if you want to delete a movie after watching it to save space but as soon as you synch the device, it puts the movie right back on.

Those are just two of the obvious problems with iPhone's media player (it's not an iPod) that come to mind. There are others. The idea that iPhone is the best iPod Apple has ever made is just so much marketing hype IMO.

[jhollington]

Well, to be fair, I can point to several firmware upgrades where smart playlists were badly broken on the 4G and 5G models as well, so it's no surprise that Apple hasn't gotten that right with the iPhone. I'm calling that one a bug at this point, rather than any kind of deliberate omission.

Having a deleted movie come back after a sync is one that I find equally odd. To be fair, however, if you have a smart playlist and/or sync settings that remove unwatched content, it won't actually come back, although the play counts and last played time will still be updated properly. The assumption here is obviously that if you still have it selected for synchronization, then you may actually want it put back on later. Still, not necessarily the most intuitive behaviour.

The bottom line, though, is that it's not just marketing hype... The point I'm trying to make is that by Apple's standards, the iPhone is the best iPod device ever made. Apple's standards don't look at the features, but rather look at how well-designed and aesthetically pleasing the device is. Lipstick on a pig, basically.... :)

I don't agree with that point of view, of course, but all I'm saying is that I think Apple actually does believe it.

[Surf Monkey]

Well, to be fair, I can point to several firmware upgrades where smart playlists were badly broken on the 4G and 5G models as well, so it's no surprise that Apple hasn't gotten that right with the iPhone. I'm calling that one a bug at this point, rather than any kind of deliberate omission.

We can only discuss the state of iPhone as it stands right now. Everything else is simply speculation. Remember, people expected all sorts of feature upgrades on the previous revs of iPod but they didn't get them. When software updates came out they were primarily bug fixes. When new features were added, Apple limited them to new versions of the hardware. Will they do the same with iPhone? Let's hope not, but right now all we have to go on is Apple's past performance in this area.

Having a deleted movie come back after a sync is one that I find equally odd. To be fair, however, if you have a smart playlist and/or sync settings that remove unwatched content, it won't actually come back, although the play counts and last played time will still be updated properly. The assumption here is obviously that if you still have it selected for synchronization, then you may actually want it put back on later. Still, not necessarily the most intuitive behaviour.

And not necessarily reliable since, as I pointed out already, smart playlists aren't working right in iPhone right now. The only reliable way to make sure it doesn't get synched back up is to manually uncheck it from the video tab in iPhone's preferences pane in iTunes.

The bottom line, though, is that it's not just marketing hype... The point I'm trying to make is that by Apple's standards, the iPhone is the best iPod device ever made. Apple's standards don't look at the features, but rather look at how well-designed and aesthetically pleasing the device is. Lipstick on a pig, basically.... :)

I completely disagree. The "iPod" in iPhone isn't an iPod at all. It's a stripped down version of iTunes. By your logic, a desktop mac running iTunes is an iPod too. There's nothing about iPhone that makes it specifically an iPod beyond the fact that it runs iTunes under its mobile OS X system. Other than that, it's an entirely unique communication device. It's more Newton than it is iPod as far as the functions and hardware go.

I don't agree with that point of view, of course, but all I'm saying is that I think Apple actually does believe it.

Really? I don't think Apple is that self deluded. They know there's a difference between iPhone and iPod. The reason they call it "the best iPod ever made" is because they want to play on the cache of positive public opinion around iPod, but they're not stupid enough to believe their own hype. If iPhone was an iPod then there wouldn't be an iPod and an iPhone devision at Apple anymore. The one group of developers and engineers would work on both products. Obviously iPhone is an iPhone and iPod is an iPod. It's just that the former happens to have iTunes on it.

[jhollington]

We can only discuss the state of iPhone as it stands right now. Everything else is simply speculation.
I don't disagree, but I"m merely pointing out that this problem is not unique to the iPhone, and it is therefore not fair to judge it's iPod features on the basis of things that are obviously broken, and have been broken in the past even in the mainstream iPod lineup.

In fact, the first release of the 5G had the exact same problem, as I recall. Nobody tried to argue that this was not an iPod because smart playlists were broken. :)

The bottom line is that there are more than enough valid criticisms available for the iPhone's iPod capabilities without resorting to pointing out what are obviously bugs as if they're somehow feature deficiencies.

And not necessarily reliable since, as I pointed out already, smart playlists aren't working right in iPhone right now. The only reliable way to make sure it doesn't get synched back up is to manually uncheck it from the video tab in iPhone's preferences pane in iTunes.
That part works flawlessly for me. The smart playlists don't update on the iPhone itself, but they update just fine in iTunes once you sync back to the iTunes library.

I have a half-dozen smart playlists for videos, and they all work fine in this regard.

I completely disagree. The "iPod" in iPhone isn't an iPod at all. It's a stripped down version of iTunes. By your logic, a desktop mac running iTunes is an iPod too. There's nothing about iPhone that makes it specifically an iPod beyond the fact that it runs iTunes under its mobile OS X system. Other than that, it's an entirely unique communication device. It's more Newton than it is iPod as far as the functions and hardware go.
This is well into the realm of a semantic argument. If you want to get technical, since Apple coined the term "iPod" it's really whatever they choose to call it.

The button says "iPod" and they've promoted it as an "iPod" feature set. It plays music, audiobooks, podcasts and videos, and it syncs with iTunes. If it walks like a duck...

Yes, from an overall device position, the iPhone is not an iPod, and I'll agree with you completely there, but it has an iPod feature set, and Apple is labeling it as such.

Again, though, this is ultimately semantics, and we could probably debate this one in circles all day. I'm not saying I don't agree with your point, I'm merely saying that there's another equally valid perspective to consider.

Really? I don't think Apple is that self deluded. They know there's a difference between iPhone and iPod. The reason they call it "the best iPod ever made" is because they want to play on the cache of positive public opinion around iPod, but they're not stupid enough to believe their own hype.
Yes of course there is marketing-spin involved, but there is also Apple's perception and the areas that they focus on in their design philosophy.

I've been a firm believer since I saw the iPhone at MWSF that this is where the iPod is ultimately going to go, and nothing I've yet seen has changed that opinion (despite my believing the exact opposite even minutes before the iPhone was unveiled).

Yes, calling it "the best iPod ever made" is marketing-spin, but I don't doubt for a second that Apple considers it "the best iPod interface ever made." Whether you or I agree with that or not isn't so much the point in this case.

Apple's design philosophy has always been more focused on interface design and aesthetics than technology gizmos and feature spec-sheets. The iPhone has proven to be a classic example of this (to my own disappointment, in fact).