New Smart Playlist iCloud rule??

[decafjava]

I guess this has been part of itunes since the debut of icloud but I never noticed it until now. There seems to be a new rule added to smartplaylists: icloud status - is, is not - matched, purchased, uploaded, ineligible, local only, error, duplicate.

Any idea what this does? I mean the terms are pretty self-explanatory but what could one do with this? Anyone see this or use it?

[Jesse Hollington]

It's mostly useful for maintenance when setting up iTunes Match rather than for any kind of ongoing generation of playlists that you might actually listen to.

For example, I used it to see which tracks weren't being uploaded to iTunes Match properly ("Error" or "Ineligible" status) so that I could hopefully figure out what the problem was and deal with them. In some cases I've been able to forcibly re-match them as Apple has improved the service on the back-end, while in others I've had to play with things a bit, such as converting MP3's to AAC before they'll be recognized and matched.

These can also be useful for converting your 128kbps tracks to 256kbps... Build a Smart Playlist that looks for a "Matched" or "Purchased" iCloud Status and a bit-rate of 128kbps. These are the tracks you can delete from your local library and then re-download in the higher, 256kbps DRM-free quality.

Note that you can also add "iCloud Status" as a column in any track listing.

[decafjava]

Ok Jesse thanks for that, might take the plunge one of these days and use itunes match.
Joe