Update #3: I was playing around with my smart playlists this morning and discovered an additional tidbit of information that may be useful for some. When syncing smart playlists, pay attention to which column you have the ordered the music by.
As you can see in the above screenshot I have my playlist sorted by ‘Date Added’ which is exactly how I want things ordered. Once I synced my iPhone playlist showed my music sorted by ‘Date Added’ as well.
If I were to have ‘Play Count’ selected as the column to sort by and then synced my iPhone, then that playlist would display the songs ordered by ‘Play Count’
I found this out while playing with the Apple Remote app for the iPhone/iPod Touch. The selected column to sort by also effects how playlists are displayed in the iPhone Remote App.
Update #2: New updates that came out kinda fix this problem. Read more here.
I noticed the other day that Smart Playlists were not syncing correctly to both my wife and my own iPhone.
I found one fix that allowed the sort order to be correct, but disabled the Live updating function of the Smart Playlists. Which meant that every time an attribute of the playlist was updated (Such as rating a new song for my ‘5 Stars’ playlist) nothing was updated upon syncing with my iPhone.
This totally defeats the purpose of a playlist that automagically updates my iPhone with the last 100 added, or top rated songs. ARGH!
Alas, after following a suggestion from this discussion thread (Thanks Dave Jelfs!) we now have a solution. In fact there’s even a bonus side effect for those who only want to sync music, and not video within your playlists.
Update: Joel S points out that this is not totally accurate. “In my own testing, these playlists will still include Music Videos.”
First find your Smart Playlist in the sidebar.
Ctrl + Click on the playlist and select “Edit Smart Playlist”
A new window will appear with all the settings for that particular playlist. Add a new rule of ‘Playlist is Music’
You’ll notice ‘Live updating’ is still on.
Now sync your playlist with your phone. TaDa!
While is is a workaround it does allow for the playlist to be synced, auto updated and appear sorted as you wish on the iPhone.
Like my previous troubleshooting articles I hope this post will be quickly updated when Apple roles out a fix. Until then, happy Smart Playlist syncing!
As with everything YMMV. I was using the following setup.
Macbook Pro 1.83 Ghz
Snow Leopard 10.6.1
iTunes 9.0.1
iPhone OS 3.1
If you have an improvement please leave a comment.
Yippe! thx for posting! It worked for me too!
THANK YOU!
Thanks man,
It solved my issue too. A vaudou thing or what??
Anyway
Big thank you
Unless you synch your entire music library to the device, I think this will prevent the playlists from updating on the device.
Thank you!
I have a smart playlist with my 100 fav. songs… YOU SAVED IT!!!
i love you!
Thank you so much – this had been bothering me for a good week!!
Thanks!
Solomio, You don’t need to sync your entire music library for this to work (nor does this workaround change the way your device will sync).
I have (under general options) ‘Sync only checked songs and videos’.
In reference to the ‘update,’ if you specify the rule “Media Kind is not Music Video,” you can eliminate those from the playlist.
Cheers that was a very annoying issue solved!
This worked for me. Adding in type Audiobook fixed the order of my books as well.
Wow, AWESOME!!! Works!!! Funny workaround, how did you find this out??? Anyhow, thanks for posting and sharing! This was bugging me since my iTunes9.0 and iphone 3.1 update.
THANK YOU!!!
Big thank you from Germany, this fix totally does the job for me! How in the world did you find out about it? Anyway, thanks!
Perfect! I’ve been trying to fix this for MONTHS! I’d like to buy you a beer.
Thanks for this very helpful tip, but it’s only a partial fix for my situation… still waiting on Apple to truly fix it.
This does solve the order problem for me, but the “live updating” glitch is still not resolved. For example, I have a “5 Stars” smart playlist which includes all songs that have 5 stars – when I rate a track with 5 stars on the device, the playlist is not updated on the device.
I’m using iTunes 9.0.1.8 on a Windows XP PC, with an iPhone 3GS running software version 3.1.2.
thanks a million!
Thanks for figuring this out. Have to admit I’m wondering if it’s the lines that you added in or if it’s just the fact that you made a change to the playlist that made it wake up. Now if we could just figure out a way to rename the standard playlists….
Thanks again,
-drmike
You legend, thank you!
thanks man! this really solve my problem
i looked everywhere and didnt find the solution
this was very simple n easy!
tnx!
Thanks it works!! You are the man!! 😀
Works well for music but not for podcasts. Does anyone know how to get smart playlists for podcasts to update?
Thanks… that works for me too!
YOU ARE AWESOME!!! Thanks for making my iPhone a useful music device again!!!
Thank you. This worked for me as well, and now I can finally use my smart playlist to listen to my podcasts again.
Turns out adding “Playlist is not Music” will fix live updating smart playlists of podcasts. Wow.
GREAT!!! It worked me too!! THANKS A LOT
You are Jesus.
On 9.0.1.8 on an XP machine.
The option you mentioned isn’t there so I’m still stuck 🙁
Nice Tip!
However, smart playlist likes ‘Recently played’ won’t not be updated on the device, if user add the ‘playlist is (not) music’ rule to their smart plyalist.
Worked for me, thank you!
Worked like Magic. Thank you!
yes it is, you havent looked properly. Try again.
Another successful workaround. Big thanks for the info. One less headache. Ask apple to hire you, they need smart people working there. =)
THANKS SO MUCH
I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE THIS PROBLEM OUT FOR SOOOOL LONG.
THANK YOUUUUUU
Thank you so much – this problem has been annoying me for months and driving me insane! Such an easy workaround, cheers for sharing!
*weeps with joy*
Thanks! Worked liked a charm. Was thinking purchasing a Zune was the only way to end the pain.
This worked for me. Thank you very much. I am disappointed that Apple has not fixed this yet. After all, iTunes is important software for Apple. Apple hasn’t even suggested your helpful workaround.
Thank you sooooo much!
I never would’ve thought of that haha. Totally worked for me.
Thankyou!!
It is sooo annoying! I’ve been trying to sort it out for ages
I’m glad to see this post has helped so many people. I can’t wait to updated it saying Apple has fixed the problem!
I had to put “media kind” is music., Not “Playlist” for this solution to work.
My Saviour!
This is great, the only playlist it doesn’t fix for me is one that I put all my podcasts in so I can play them all in the order I want.
Thank you! I’m glad I decided to google this problem. This has been annoying me since it started happening.
I checked forums for this problem as well and it dates back to 2006… that’s 4 years ago… What the hell have the programmers been doing?
Thanks so much! Playlists are everything to me.
Thanks! The update yesterday didn’t fix this yet for me, so this is wonderful!
Hey all,
It looks like the latest iTunes and iPhone update that came out fixes this. Please check em out and let us know if you too had success getting smart playlists to sync.
I updated this post and wrote about the fix here:
http://clkoerner.com/2010/02/02/itunes-9-smart-playlist-live-updating-iphone-win/