Four months later and it appears we kinda have working Smart Playlists on the ol’ iPhone. No more workaround!
After updating to iPhone firmware 3.1.3 and iTunes 9.0.3 it appears that changes to the status of smart playlists on the iPhone sync back to iTunes. No need to add ‘Playlist is Music’ to get the playlists to update!
*Note: According to new discussion on Apple’s support site changes on the iPhone aren’t reflected on the iPhone. Which means it’s not totally kosher.
I hope this is true for other folks as well.
It’s worse now
Some of my smart playlists don’t show up on my iphone and the ones that sync are blank..
For podcasts, you can make an all inclusive live updating smart playlist, and then point all of your more sorted / specific playlists at it with the “Playlist In ~” method. Thanks for the help with the work around, it’s been REALLY annoying not being able to listen to my podcasts in age order for a long time.
I have the exact same problem as Mike.
I just updated the original post on this problem. Check out another piece of information that may help your syncing woes. http://clkoerner.com/2009/09/27/itunes-9-smart-playlist-live-updating-iphone-fail/