Smart Playlist ~ Gotcha's!

[Holydoc]

With the IPOD Firmware of 1.1 (and now 1.1.1), the Smart Playlist feature on the IPOD was made to update dynamically. However I could not ever get mine to update dynamically, so I disputed this and took it as hearsay.

Doing a little research on the Apple Support board I found this post:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....052812#2052812

It was a post from Da Gopha asking people what the symptoms of their Smart Playlists not updating. Through some great feedback, he determined that the source was the use of the "Podcast > is true" or "Podcast > is false" commands within a playlist.

After making those changes, I discovered that some of my Smart Playlists still did not update correctly when the IPOD was disconnected from ITUNES. I discovered that referencing the "Videos" Playlist within the Smart Playlist also causes the Smart Playlist to not dynamically update.

So for the sake of repeating myself, here is what I posted in the Apple Support Thread:

1. Using "Podcast > Is True" or "Podcast > is False" will prevent your Smart Playlist from dynamically updating.
2. Using "Playlist > is > Videos" or "Playlist > is not > Videos" will prevent your Smart Playlist from dynamically updating.
3. Referencing a playlist that uses any of the above mentioned commands in your Smart Playlist will prevent your Smart Playlist from dynamically updating.


Hope this helps everyone who are worried about Smart Playlists.

[Ilyanep]

What about "Genre -> is not Podcast" or "Kind -> Does not contain Video"?

[Holydoc]

Ilyanep,

The two "work-arounds" that you mentioned are what I am using to replace the other commands that prevent the IPOD from dynamically updating Playlists.

The two commands you mentioned work fine and do not hamper the process. You can also use:

Genre > Contains > Podcast