Smart Playlists on iOS

Still not working properly for me. How about anyone else? It's an improvement - I see a few songs in them now, but in some I am only seeing one or two where there should be hundreds.
Haven't been able to check the play count / last played yet but will experiment further with it tomorrow.

iOS 5.1 did not fix all the problems related to smart playlist in the iPad 2 with iTunes Match subscription.
Smart Playlists based on dates are not syncing across all devices and Macs/PCs. For example, Recently Played.
Smart Playlists based on play counts are not syncing across all devices and Macs/PCs.
Sorting of songs in iPad2 is out of whack. iPad2 music app seems to ignore the sort order in smart playlists. this is very annoying since I have a lot of classical music in my library in which track arrangement is very important. I'm not having this problem with my iPod Touch though, just in the iPad2.
iOS 5.1 did fix one of my problems: the Smart Playlists in the iPad2 that are based on the "Comments" field. My smart playlists are now correctly populated with songs.
These are my observations, so far.

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Missing songs in Smart Playlists on iOS

I use smart playlists a lot. For example I have a playlist like this:
"Rating" IS "5 stars"
"Last played" NOT WITHIN "6 months"
"Media Type" IS "Music"
"Last Skipped" NOT WITHIN "7 days"
When I start iTunes I have 447 songs in this playlist, on iOS I only have 430 songs. Where might this difference come from? Although the iOS list shows less songs, I found at least 2 songs which should not be on iOS as they were played 2 weeks ago. Can I cause the Music Player on iOS to refresh the playlist? On iTunes I have a flag "Live updating" set.
By the way, I tested this with iTunes on a mac which does not have my main library, so iTunes only show songs which where matched correctly. So it is not a matching problem!
Any idea?

Ok, it is a monologue up to now, but when I search at google for my problem I already find my own thread, so I will also share my latest findings:
The problem is definately caused by the "last played" field. This is not synced correctly between two iTunes Libraries (and I guess it is the same on iOS, but there is no way to check the "last played" information on iOS). The same song has different dates on my two macs. So in my opinion no smart playlist using "last played" will work correctly when using iTunes Match.
The only way to get the "last played" field in sync again, is to deactivate and activate iTunes Match on each device. But they are only in sync for short time. As soon as I start playing songs, they are not updated correctly via the cloud.
I also found this thread, which is pointing out the same problems:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16739537#16739537
Let's hope there is an update soon...

Any way to create a smart playlist on iOS of songs that have been downloaded from the cloud?

Of my 72gb library it's hard to remember what has been downloaded from the cloud to my iPhone. It would be great if there was a way to have my tracks be dumped into some sort of playlist to easily access what has been downloaded. Anyone know of way to do this? Or recommendations on an easier way to keep track of downloaded tracks?

These all work fine on my mac but again, I was wanting the smart playlist on my iphone. I could download songs from the cloud on my mac (which wouldnt make sense anyways since it's where my entire library is) but this defeats the whole purpose of accessing my music through my phone and icloud and not having to sync or make playlists on my mac.
Let me ask you guys this, every time you want to listen to something on your iOS device, do you wait for it download? Do you remember everyhting you've downloaded and only listen to those tracks? What's your method for listening to music on your device?
Really dissapointed in Match....it's basically a back up service.

The 10.4 upgrade smart playlist editing has removed the ellipse as the 3rd button option along side the adding or removing a parameter. Why? And can we get it back?

I just did the iTunes update to 10.4 (80) from 10.3 on a MacPro OS X 10.6.8 . I am extremely nervous and saddened by a subtle change to the smart playlist editing features. I have 178.26gb of music, and a very extensive array of playlists and smart playlists taking full advantage of all the wonderful features and complexity someone has taken the time to develop. I have taken years of time developing my library, and this one little change will set me back substantially. The change? Removing the ellipse as the 3rd button option along side the adding or removing a parameter. The button allowed one to create levels or groups of parameters within the dialogue window that could act independently within one smart playlist. For example, songs from artist "A" needs at least 2 stars to be included, while songs from artist "B" need three stars, and they both can be in the same smart playlist which has its first level of complexity. I have lists that go dozens of layers beyond. And dozens more that cross reference. Is there any way we can get the hierarchy back, ie. Reintroduce the ellipse button? Or is there something new I do not know about? Thanks!

I would like to second this.
This subtle yet life-changing removal is a total loss for advanced users that (used to) take full advantage of "logical and hierarchical" playlists. It tremendously impairs the "smartness" of the feature, effectively removing the possibility of mixing "and" & "if" parameters—which was the real beauty of the whole concept of "smart playlists" à la iTunes.
Here's a simple example. I would like to create a playlist combining two genres (rock and electronic) with only songs that have a rating higher than 3. I cannot do that anymore. I need to create two playlists:
a first playlist (A) that displays [Rock] OR [Electronic] (note that this playlist will never be played, it's an intermediary step required for B)
then a second playlist (B) that displays [songs from playlist "A"] AND [with a rating higher than 3].
It's a pain. And it clutters up browsing lists on my iPad/iPhone a lot.
Smart playlists should get the ellipse button back!
Moreover, the possibility of creating / editing smart playlists on iOS via a nice menu would be just… awesome. I would have thought Apple was going in that "smart" direction with iTunes. In hoping it's just a delay… until iOS 5 maybe?

ITunes Match smart playlist item count

after creating a smart playlist in iTunes that is supposed to limit to 50 items,
I can see the playlist on my iphone. But the item limit does not exist. The playlist is thousands of songs long instead of 50.
This REALLY needs to be fixed.
I truly hope more effort is put into properly supporting smart playlists in iTunes Match
I've attached an image that shows my smart playlist rules

This is a well known shortcoming of iTunes Match, it does not handle Smart Playlists on IOS devices well.
Current workaround involves use of standard playlists and 'download all' options - it is not neat and this capability is one of several needed in later versions of the service and IOS capability.

Is there a way to make a smart "playlist" of specific books in my iTunes library, and copy ONLY THOSE books to an iOS device? I own an iPad and an iPhone but I want different books on different devices.

Is there a way to make a smart "playlist" of specific books in my iTunes library, and copy ONLY THOSE books to an iOS device? I own an iPad and an iPhone but I want different books on each different device. When I've tried this, the iOS devices don't seem to respond.

There is no playlist for iBooks, butther eis nothing to preent you from choosing to download specific titles from itunes, or syncing just specific titles to an individual device.

Can't create a smart playlist of podcasts in iOS 7?

I've got to iPhone 4Ss, one on iOS 6, the other on iOS 7. On the iOS6 device, I have created a Smart Playlist that contains my podcast subscriptions for the last two weeks. This playlist is the major use of my iPhone. However, on the iOS 7 device, The Recent Podcast playlist is there in the Music app, but it is empty. Is iOS 7 forcing me to listen to podcasts only through the useless Podcasts app?

Hi there anok goh,
You may find the troubleshooting steps in the article below helpful.
iCloud: Troubleshooting iCloud Contacts
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3998
-Griff W.

Smart Playlists no longer updated with iOS 4.3 on iPhone 4

I've run into an issue with the latest iOS 4.3 update: my smart playlists are no longer dynamically being updated on my iPhone 4.
All of my main playlists are smart: they exclude songs that I've played in the past week. Earlier today when I'd play a song and it went to the next one, it'd immediately remove the song from the playlist (so I was always on track 1 of XXX). With 4.3, this is no longer happening and the smart playlist only dynamically updates when I sync my phone with my computer. This is annoying because it means that I can end up hearing the same song again if I switch playlists.
Anyone else run into this? Any fixes? I tried rebooting my phone to no avail.

My results differ from yours.
With iOS 4.0x, 4.1 and 4.2x my smart playlists with live updating were broken. It would start with track 1 of 5, then 2 of 4, then 3 of 3, 4 of 2, then would generally crash the iPod app. If I left the playlist and re-entered it would have removed the entries already played, but I would find that some of the entries that should have played had actually been skipped in m playlist.
With iOS 4.3, my playlists are properly working for me again. Now they play 1 of 5, 2 of 5, 3 of 5, ... If I return to the playlist while it is playing, I see that the entries that have already played are removed, and if I leave the playlist to return later, it starts over a 1 of 2, 2 of 2...
I have posted another thread of how I have my playlists defined, so perhaps that would help you. I do recall that there were some conditions that used to cause problems if used in a smart playlist.

ITunes 11.1.2 and iOS 7.0.3 Smart Playlists not working

I am unable to get a smart playlist of mine to update on my iPhone 4s. The smart playlist is updated on my iMac and the items in it are copied across to my 4s but the playlist on my 4s is not getting updated. This just started 2 days ago. When I sync the same smart playlist to an old iPod Touch 3g running iOS 4.3.3 it is copied across fine and all works. The items in the playlist are all podcasts and up to a couple of days ago were copying across fine (and the older items are still there in the playlist on my 4s).

Hello gortdromagh,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing when syncing your playlist to your iPhone. For an issue like this, I recommend resyncing the music to your iPhone.
If you are syncing automatically, resync content to the iPhone by unchecking "Sync Music" and click "Apply," then check "Sync Music" and click "Apply" again.
You can find the syncing steps in the following article:
iTunes 11 for Mac: Set up syncing for iPod, iPhone, or iPad
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12113
Thank you for posting in the Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Smart playlists are not in alphabetical order on iOS 5.1 devices

One of the most frustrating things for me about iTunes Match is the fact that the smart playlists in iTunes (version 10.6) do not sync in alphabetical order on my iPad/iPhone running iOS 5.1.
Even though I click on the Name column and the songs in iTunes appear in alphabetical order, the songs appear in a random order on the iPad. I spent hours trying to fix this by turning iTunes Match off on my iPad, turning it on etc all to no avail. I created new smart playlists thinking that maybe the original smart playlists were corrupted in some way by the upgrade to the latest version of iTunes. This did not work either.
Then, I had an idea. I created a new playlist (not a smart one), called it Test Alpha, copied the songs from the smart playlist into it and waited for my iPad to update.
Voila! The songs in this new, non-smart playlist are in alphabetical order.
I do hope that this problem is fixed. It is a pain to do this for the 15 odd smart playlist I have. Hope this helps someone else.

No. And the problem persists in iOS 6 with the latest version of iTunes.
For three weeks, I had been talking on and off with a techie in Singapore. She got me to run all these test, send screen shots etc..
In the end, I was told that the engineers said 'that is how it's supposed to be'. Well, thank you very much. No help at all. No further discussion about the issue ensued.
Apple's arrogance will soon be the cause of its share price collapsing. My solution? I have not renewed my subscription to iTunes Match.

Bug: iOS 5 and iTunes 10.5 podcast smart playlist sort order and how to fix.

There seems to be a bug in iOS 5 and iTunes 10.5 involving the sort order of a smart playlist of podcasts. I created such a playlist and sorted by release date on iTunes but I noticed it had a different sort order on the iPod Touch.
After playing around with it a bit I found that the only way to preserve the sort order that I have in iTunes on the iPod Touch is to uncheck "Live Updating" in the smart playlist.

Confirming this incredibly annoying bug. Basic list sorting not working... real bottom shelf work apple.
workaround update: limit to must be turned on, set it to an absurdly high number if you don't want to actually limit the playlist, then one of the sortby options in that submenu will work. The live update checkbox is irrelevant from experimentation.
This workaround does NOT fix the fundamental problem: sort order from itunes in smart playlists is not being synced and preserved in ios5 devices.
This is the latest in a long string of debacles which is making me seriously consider swapping to debian stable. (snow leopard to lion was a severe downgrade in performance for anyone doing heavy multitasking.. scheduling is FUBAR... when a command option escape beachballs on a brand new core 17 machine, your OS has serious problems with nice levels)

Why are my Smart playlists out of order in iOS 5?

Since upgrading to iOS 5 on an iPad and iPhone 4 (Verizon), many (not all) of my smart playlists made in iTunes are out of order in both my iPad and iPhone (meaning the songs within the lists are our of order not the lists themselves). Somtimes the playlists vary even between my iPad and iPhone, not just with iTunes.
I tried a couple of workarounds I found on the web:
1) I've unchecked Live Updating on my affected Smart playlists, but it only seemed to work on some of them.
2) Resorting the Smart playlists in iTunes by a different order, like Album, Name, or Artists seemed to work for others.
Still, some of the smart playlists on my iPad and iPhone have resisted even these solutions and stubornly will not sort to the order I have them in iTunes.
My iPad has now more smart playlists synced correctly than my iPhone, yet, i have the same sync settings for both of them. I've been trying to find the rhyme or reason behind the mangled sort order but haven't a clue. Anyone else experiencing such strange behavior with smart playlists since upgrading to iOS 5? Is this a bug or just some setting I am missing?

Created a similar post about 1 month ago - with no response...its driving me crazy too! Would love a fix!

Podcasts in Smart Playlist not showing up on iPhone in iOS 5

Upon first syncing my iPhone to iTunes after uploading both to iOS 5 and iTunes 10.5, I noticed that my podcasts in Smart Playlists were not there, and coincidentally, the Smart Playlists were gone in iTunes (that's a different issue altogether).
The solution I found is that you have to sync the podcast Smart Playlist from the "Podcasts" tab on iTunes. I did this with my phone plugged in, but suppose that this would also work with a wi-fi sync.
Choosing the Smart Playlists from the "Music" tab will result in empty playlists on your phone.
Hope this helps!

I'm having the exact same issue on Mac OS 10.7.2 and iOS 5. There are some other posts on Podcasts not syncing with smart playlists. I haven't found a solution yet. Super annoying. I used to have a smart playlist of audio podcasts sorted by date. Now the Smart Playlist shows up on my iPhone - but it's empty. I've tried your solution but id didn't work for me. I've unchecked all Playlists in the Music tab and checked them in the Podcast tab and I've still got empty Smart Playlists on my iPhone. Let me know if you get any more info on this. I'd also like to add that this exact problem surfaced a while back with a previous iOS update.
Here are what I see as the variables in this problem...
Music tab:
• Playsts box (my Smart Playlists of Podcasts DO NOT show up here)
• Genres box (I've tried checking and unchecking the Podcast Genre)
Podcast tab:
• Automattically including ___ episodes of ____ podcasts (I've tried checking and unchecking this)
• List of indivudual podcasts with checkboxes (I've tried checking and unchecking them)
• Include Episodes from Playlists (I've tried checking and unchecking them)

Smart Playlist problem on iOS 4.2 iPhone 3g

I don't know if it matters that I have an iPhone 3g or if this is a universal problem with iOS 4.2...
I have several smart playlists I use to manage podcasts. One for news and talk podcasts and one for fiction podcasts, but I suppose they could be anything. I have them set to grab specific podcasts where the play count is 0.
What I'm noticing since the last update is that they will play the first podcast fine, then get about 2 seconds into the next track and stop playing. Interestingly, while watching the screen today when a podcast ended, the next one started, then stopped, and when I clicked the button on the headphones, the screen said it was playing podcast 3 of 2. There were 3 originally, and when it finishes one, since the play count is no longer 0, it's deleted from the playlist.
I suppose I can manage them manually, but I've been doing it this way for years. It also keeps things nicely in sync between my iMac, iPhone and iPod shuffle.
Am I the only one seeing this?

There is no legit way to downgrade.
Have you tried basics from the manual?
Restart.
reset.
Restore.
Troubleshooting MMS:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2755

IOS update still did NOT fix the live updating to smart playlist on iPhone

I updated to the brand new iOS 4.1 today, and I am still having an issue that has made me upset for the past few months. For years and years I have been able to use smart playlists that have live updated on my iPods and iPhones without problems. Recently, within the past few months of software updates, my smart playlists have stopped live updating.
Here are two examples I'm talking about:
1. I have a smart playlist of music that I call Unrated for iPhone. The smart playlists requirements are that it has no star rating and that it is limited to 500 MB. I used to be able to rate songs on my iPhone, and they would get removed from the playlist automatically within my iPhone without having to sync it with my desktop. Now, as I rate those songs on my iPhone, they stay on the unrated list.
2. I have another playlist called 5*'s least recent. The requirements for this smart playlist are that the songs have 5 stars, and they are limited to the 75 least recently played songs. Songs used to be removed from that list once they were played. Now, they stay on that list until I sync my iPhone to my desktop.
What happened to live updating? Is anybody else experiencing this problem? I have loved this feature for years and now there is a bug! Has anybody brought up this topic before? Because I couldn't find any solutions.

FYI, I've found that Live Updating can SORT OF work. It seems if you only have two rules, live upating works (IE, I have one that is a Rating must be 3-5*'s and last played cannot be within the last 8 weeks). Once the song is played it disapears off the playlist. BUT, as soon as I try to add a third rule, it doesn't work anymore! This is unfortunate because two rules really limits the ability of the playlist...
Cheers,

Smart Playlists on iOS

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