Help me solve this iTunes Smart Playlist problem

[steve62388]

Hi folks,

I have a problem with Smart Playlists syncing to my iPad and iPhone.

Here's how it works...

And these feed into a master list:-

Those that know their way around Smart Playlists will see what I am wanting to do here. I want a dynamically updated list (the Master) which has a collection of songs weighted towards my favourites (i.e. more five star than four and so on) with my least recently played taking precedence so I keep my list as fresh as possible.

When I play any of these playlists, including the Master, on my Mac everything updates as it should and as I expect.

When I play any of the feeder Smart Playlists on my iPad/iPhone they update as should be expected, rolling off the last played song and replacing it with another one. When I play the Master on my iPad/iPhone nothing happens, nothing updates and the songs remain on the list. This makes my Master pointless on iOS.

I think the problem is the fact it's Smart Playlists feeding into another Smart Playlist and iOS is finding this too complicated to deal with.

So my question is this the problem? Is there another way to manipulate Smart Playlists to achieve my goal on iOS?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Pharmscott]

Help me understand why you need the master playlist. If you just use the four step / count by stars playlist, what do you lose?

 

[steve62388]

Help me understand why you need the master playlist. If you just use the four step / count by stars playlist, what do you lose?

So when I play songs it's a collection of mainly good songs down to just a few crappy songs. If I select to play just the two stars playlist for example that would just be a collection of crap. If I modified the Master playlist to just pull songs directly based on their star rating then it wouldn't be weighted for lots of good and just a few crap.

I hope that makes sense, please let me know if it doesn't. Or am I missing something obvious here?

 

[Pharmscott]

I follow you. The design doesn't allow you to stack the counts and link them with "AND" logic. This would be ideal:

#10 2-star
AND
#30 3-star
AND...

I did some searching and even tried creating my own list. I was thinking of earlier versions of iTunes where you could have complex nests (e.g. sub-bullets). Sorry, I'm stumped. Good luck!

 

[steve62388]

I follow you. The design doesn't allow you to stack the counts and link them with "AND" logic. This would be ideal:

#10 2-star
AND
#30 3-star
AND...

I did some searching and even tried creating my own list. I was thinking of earlier versions of iTunes where you could have complex nests (e.g. sub-bullets). Sorry, I'm stumped. Good luck!

Well thanks for trying. It's a shame that iOS can't be used in this way, one would have thought that an iPhone would be powerful enough to handle it. I'm just thinking that Smart Playlists are not that smart and useful right now, I'm going to go on a Web browse to get some ideas.

Maybe someone else will end up chiming in with a clever solution.

 

[steve62388]

Just a point. If somebody is reading this month's from now and has a solution please feel free to resurrect this thread, I will probably still be looking for a solution. But quote me in your reply so I am notified about your post.