iPod’s mix music and podcasts
OK, personal gripe time.
I have an iPod nano (no, thats not the problem, it goes a little deeper than that) and I enjoy listening to podcasts and music, all on the same iPod. The problem is that when I want to listen to random music tracks, the iPod will often pick podcasts and play those as well as real music (I’ll admit that the frequency it does it is due to the fact that my iPod is 50% podcasts).
It seems the iPod thinks that everything is music, and that the Podcast and Audiobook sub-menus just display music tagged as such. This means when you say Play All, it plays everything. The real thorn is that iTunes recognises the difference, and its Library -> Music section only has music.
The only workaround I’ve managed to come up with is to create a Smart Playlist that has a filter of “Not flagged Podcast”, and use that for random selection. Its not ideal, but I wish Apple would work out that I don’t want Podcasts mixed with my music.
Someone please tell me if there is a better way (other than buying a separate iPod just for music).
The way I created the Smart Playlist was:
- Open iTunes
- Click File menu, click New Smart Playlist
- Change the filter fields to Podcast and is false
- Tick Live updating
- Click Ok
This works for the most part.
Update
I have been informed by Apple that having Podcasts show up in Music is perfectly normal. Thats nice, its like being told that having a large spear driven through your head is perfectly normal. I’ve also been informed through other sources that the reason for this is that if you replace the word Music with Audio it makes sense. Which I must admit, it does. So now I want a menu named “Music (no, really)” that just plays, yup, music. Closest I will come though is the Smart Playlist above.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the fact that you can’t change the order of podcast episodes!
September 18th, 2007 at 10:33 am
This is a huge pet peeve for me. I love my iPod nano and I only really had podcasts on it. But then I got a 5.5g as a gift and am constantly annoyed by the clutter.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I had this worked out once and got the podcasts and music seperated correctly but have since reformatted and reinstalled etc…
I cannot work out how I did it but I will let you know if i work it out again, Apple however should be able to tell us how to sort it… I cannot beleive it is so complicated to do what should be obvious, if you are playing music you dont want the bloody podcasts and vsv.
Anyway dont give up yet, the answer is out there… somewhere
January 18th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Re: changing the order of podcast episodes – it CAN be done. The ipod puts items in the order that they were loaded, not otherwise. If you want items in some other order, then 1) create a new playlist for the items to move to (at least temporarily) 2) go to the playlist where the items currently reside and put them into the order you want them (e.g. sorted alphabetically) 3) select all of the items wanted from the sorted list and drag them to the new playlist 4) remove the old items from the original playlist. The Ipod will now play the items in the order you specified.