new iPod on-the-go playlists are USELESS!!!

solrac

solrac

Mac Ninja
I got the new 30 GB iPod and I love it and all...

but I'm disappointed with the new on-the-go playlist feature. Majorly disappointed.

I was excited to be able to finally have the capacity to copy my friend's 20 GB of unorganized MP3s. TONS OF CRAPPY music, with several gems scattered throughout.

So my plan was to just listen to music on my iPod, and as I heard all the crappy songs, I'd add them to the on-the-go playlist.

Then, when I got back to my mac, I could delete all the songs from the on-the-go playlist and clean up my music library.

But NOOO... first of all, you can't add songs to the on-the-go playlist while you are listening to it. You can ONLY add song titles to it by holding down the middle button on the song name in the list. Once you actually play the song (and get the time remaining / volume / etc.) you can no longer add the song. And... as you know.. if you hit the menu button to go back to the playlist, it will NOT be hilited at the currently playing song. (That would've solved this whole problem!)

So you cannot add songs to the on-the-go playlist WHILE listening to them. You can only add them BEFORE you listen to them.

Finally... when you connect your iPod to your computer, the on-the-go playlist is AUTOMATICALLY CLEARED! So even if you spent all the time to manually put songs in the playlist that you wanted to delete by tediously looking for them in the playlist (while they were playing), it would still be cleared out when you connected the iPod!!

So this feature is completely useless. Why would you use an on-the-go playlist? It's so useless! It would've been PERFECT to mark songs to delete later, but ... alas....
 
Im sorry, I have to comment on your sig. I love it. I love the Toyota Supra. I want one...bad! Hehe...VROOMM!! Whheee! Er... heh, sorry. But anywho yeah, I have an older 10 gig iPod and love it. But from what you tell me, that on the go playlist thing does seem usless. :(
 
Maybe I'll get the supra next year... hehehe

If I bought it cash, I would need at least $35 k in my bank account...

If I got approved for financing, I'd need a decent job and at least $15k in my bank account.

But it's not that much money, best car in the UNIVERSE!!!
 
Back to the iPod thing...
It is good to get these frustrations out, though. Apple people frequent these boards from time to time (or so I have heard...) and if they see these issues, then they are most likely going to fix them. Just a thought...
 
well you talked about the clearing of teh on-the-go list... that's bad but not as bad as not being able to add a song while its playing!!!
 
No, it's on purpose. Even the instruction manual that comes with the iPod says that the playlist will be cleared when you connect it to your computer.
 
Well, I'm glad I'm not missing out on much by having an 'old' iPod then.

What I'd really love to be able to do with my iPod though is rate songs on the go, and I believe the new iPods allow this to be done.

When I put new albums on my iPod I'd love to be able to listen to them for the first time and rate the songs so that the ones I liked the most would show up in my 'Best Of' smart playlist (all songs rated 4 or above).

If the new iPod does allow this, then you could also use this feature to clear off the crappy songs. If you were to rate a crappy song with a 1 rating, you could then have a smart playlist of all crappy songs (songs rated 1) and just delete these off your iPod (there are also variations on this you could do).


The other thing that annoys me about my iPod is that live-updating smart playlists do not update until you reconnect to iTunes. This is quite annoying with some of my smart playlists. Is this the same in the version 2 firmware or have they fixed/changed this?


Also, I think on-the-go smart playlists would be a fantastic feature, allowing you to set up a new smart playlist on the iPod.


Hmm, and whilst I'm at it, the other thing that bugs me about the iPod is that songs can only be in 1 genre. There are some songs that I'd like to be able to list in a couple of genres and then when browsing by genre or randomally playing all songs from a certain genre I'd like these songs to be in the list for both genres.


Sadly though I'm unlikely to see any of these features on my 'old' iPod even if Apple does implement them for the new iPods.
 
Originally posted by lnoelstorr

Hmm, and whilst I'm at it, the other thing that bugs me about the iPod is that songs can only be in 1 genre. There are some songs that I'd like to be able to list in a couple of genres and then when browsing by genre or randomally playing all songs from a certain genre I'd like these songs to be in the list for both genres.
Click to expand...

well, the way that the standard works for putting song info into the track is that there is a single field for the Genre. it was never intended to have more than one entry.

however, you can make a duplicate of the track and assign it to another genre-- give it a different equalizer setting while you're at it too.
 
Originally posted by lnoelstorr

The other thing that annoys me about my iPod is that live-updating smart playlists do not update until you reconnect to iTunes.
Click to expand...

I don't see how this could be done effectively. First off, the software that runs the smart playlists is built into itunes, not the ipod software. The smart playlists get shuffled to the ipod and the ipod doesn't know the difference. The ipod does have this on the go stuff, but that's only one slot that is set aside for that type of thing. plus if the ipod could update the list itself, then you would run into the problem of having multiple copies of these differing playlists.
 
Originally posted by lnoelstorr
When I put new albums on my iPod I'd love to be able to listen to them for the first time and rate the songs so that the ones I liked the most would show up in my 'Best Of' smart playlist (all songs rated 4 or above).

If the new iPod does allow this, then you could also use this feature to clear off the crappy songs. If you were to rate a crappy song with a 1 rating, you could then have a smart playlist of all crappy songs (songs rated 1) and just delete these off your iPod (there are also variations on this you could do).
Click to expand...

DUH!!! YES!!! THANK YOU!! I can't believe I forgot about this! Now I can clear crappy songs on the go! I even thought of this solution myself a while ago, and totally forgot!

Oh and for multiple genres, you can add more genre names in the comments field manually if you want. Then make a smart playlist that says "if genre = jazz" and another one that says "if comment contains 'vocal'" for instance, and the same song will show up in both lists.
 
Originally posted by solrac


Oh and for multiple genres, you can add more genre names in the comments field manually if you want. Then make a smart playlist that says "if genre = jazz" and another one that says "if comment contains 'vocal'" for instance, and the same song will show up in both lists.
Click to expand...

Great idea, seems simple to do it that way.
 
I hate to be the devil's advocate here, but I think that using the iPod to organize your music with on-the-go playlists was not apples intention.

The created it with the idea that you know what songs are what and just want to quickly add them to the playlist so you can basically make a playlist to listen on the fly. It wasn't meant to be a way to take songs out to organize.

I'm glad it clears it when it uploads. Thats why it is called on-the-go playlist. Its temporary for the time you used the iPod when you were on-the-go!

Why not use iTunes to organize your music? The iPod is for playing them.
 
I do use itunes to organize, but I have about 1500 songs in my library. That means that for me to really organize it, I'd have to sit there and go through every one of the suckers. When I'm out on the town with my ipod, however, sometimes I'll run into a song that I know should not be in there, or that has a duplicate. In order to get rid of it, I'd have to remember to do it when i got home. I think the real beauty of the ipod is that 10gb is so much space that I just stop caring altogether.
 
1500? That's not too bad. 6500 here, and when I decide to do some spring cleaning, it takes a LONG time, especially when I have to decide what of 40GB of music goes onto a 10GB iPod (a PAIN in the ass). I'm STILL updating my MP3's to AAC files from my CD's. 100 albums down, a couple hundred more to go. :p I do wish that Apple would make it possible for old iPod's to rate files; rating songs is something I'm constantly doing. Oh well, we can keep asking, but somehow I don't think it's gonna happen, sorta like asking Apple to make it possible to run OS X on a Quadra. Just ain't gonna work.
 
I knew when I put 1500 that I would be chastised...well it's actually 1729, but the point is that even sub2k is a lot of songs, and the ipod is not set up for that kind of sorting.
 
Originally posted by solrac
DUH!!! YES!!! THANK YOU!! I can't believe I forgot about this! Now I can clear crappy songs on the go! I even thought of this solution myself a while ago, and totally forgot!

Oh and for multiple genres, you can add more genre names in the comments field manually if you want. Then make a smart playlist that says "if genre = jazz" and another one that says "if comment contains 'vocal'" for instance, and the same song will show up in both lists.
Click to expand...

(edit as my reply seemed to be blank - this forum really doesn't like me!)

I do something a little like this already. In the genre field a put a comma seperated list of genres, like 'Indie, Synth'. I then create smart playlists along the lines of 'contains Indie' or 'contains Synth'.

This however means I end up with a load of smart playlists and the briowse by genre functionality is rendered useless.

I just wish there was a way of doing something similar that the iPod recognised automatically.
 
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