This is a bit of a guide I’ve put together for a better use of the dreaded iTunes. Unfortunately, it’s a necessary evil we all have to deal with like grocery shopping or dental hygiene. This guide is suited to me personally, and the way I like to take in my media, so please keep this in mind when reading. Hopefully, you’ll be able to get something out of these and adjust the recommendations to your tastes, enjoy!
If you’re like me, you have a lot of podcasts. I have more than a hundred subscriptions of both audio and video, which makes it too difficult to navigate in my iPod, and it’s too many clicks to sort through the ‘new if its blue’ interface. Fortunately, the Smart Playlists provide some decent solutions to this.
Smart Playlist: “New Podcasts”
File > New Smart Playlist: Playcount is 0, Podcast is true.
I don’t keep any previous episodes in my podcast subscriptions, so anything that isn’t new is automatically deleted. I manually refresh, but depending on your situation there is always the option of incorporating the ‘Date Added is in the last 7 days’.
As they are downloaded, every new podcast will show up in this smartlist. Between audio and video, I separate manually and watch them in succession.
However, this doesn’t solve the problem of mobile listening as the list is still quite large. In addition, the blue-dot interface is somewhat lacking on the iPod. The solution is in another smartlist…
Smart Playlist: “Daily Podcast Queue”
File > New Smart Playlist: Podcast is true, Play Count is 0, Rating is 1-star.
As you sync your iPod for the day (I also do this manually), select several of the podcasts you want to listen to for the day, and add a 1-star rating to them. This will add them to a smaller selection of podcasts that is not only your most-interested in items, but they will also run in succession. There is nothing worse than getting to the end of The Sound of Young America halfway through your busy train ride only to fumble in your pockets and elbow several Japanese salary-men to find your next selection.
These are very basic smartlists, but they are a nice introduction to the way they work. As this iTunes series continues, I’ll be talking about utilizing the star ratings to apply a kind of objective meta-data to your library. Combining your star ratings with variables like Play Count and Last Played will get you some really great results, stay tuned!
Thank you Aaron. I’d had an inkling this sort of functionality was available in iTunes, but I’d never made the effort to figure it out.
Your clear descriptions and images make this understandable. I look forward to experimenting with Smart Playlists thanks to your tutorial.
Many thanks!!
Man aaron that was boring! Good on you
@scott thanks!
@jeannine YOU ARE!