Chapter 13: Making Smart Playlists

You have the option of making mediocre playlists for your iPod that simply "do the job". Or you can master the art of creating Smart Playlists that wow everyone including yourself. Smart Playlists are one feature of iTunes that is very underused. A Smart Playlist is automatically updated depending on what kind of criteria you set for them. iTunes lets you create playlists by combining your music tracks from a variety of albums, artists, and genres. Using Smart Playlists lets you take the playlist to an even higher level.

Smart Playlists were first introduced in iTunes 3. With the Smart list you are able to personalize the music that you listen to by updating your playlist with criteria that includes last played, my rating, play count, and comment. You have the choice of using any or all of these criteria when you are creating a Smart Playlist. You also have the option of eliminating some of the criteria, such as song name. The great thing about a Smart Playlist is that it is something different for everyone who creates a playlist.

One thing that you will want to know how to do on your iPod is "rate a song". To rate a song all you have to do is press the center of the wheel two times. The first press will push the wheel into "jog mode" while the second push of the wheel will push the wheel into "rating mode". Once you are in the rating mode you will see that there are stars on the screen. You can then turn the wheel to increase or decrease the number of stars that you are giving a particular song.

Make sure that iTunes is set to either one of the two automatic transfer modes when you are in the iPod options screen. If you are not in one of these modes you won’t be able to transfer the play counts, play dates, or ratings in an easy manner to your iTunes library.

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