WaltPad

Smart Playlists

So, this has been a thing for a while now, but it’s really starting to drive me nuts and I’m curious whether I’m just doing it wrong or whether syncing Smart Playlists [to an iPhone] is really and truly useless.

Here’s the thing: You create a Smart Playlist in iTunes. The rules you define determine the stuff that appears in your playlist. Since your entire library is in iTunes, the rules are run against your entire library. So you get exactly what you expect in your Smart Playlist and all is right with the universe.

With me so far?

Then you sync that playlist to your iP(hone|od|ad) [iPhone (or, presumably, iPod touch)] and it all goes to shit. The stuff in your Smart Playlist on your device is different than the stuff in the same Smart Playlist on iTunes. I think this is because the rules are getting synced, but the stuff isn’t. And, since only a subset of your entire library is on your device, the rules are run against that, leaving you with an “accurate” rule-based playlist which is completely useless.

I want the rules and the stuff synced.

Why aren’t the contents of a Smart Playlist synced along with the rules? It seems like that would make so much more sense. You’d get the stuff you want from your library on your device, and the rules would reflect any changes you made on the device.

Anyway, like I say, I may be doing this all wrong in which case please feel free to let me know in the comments. :)

Thoughts on Apple and Adobe

Jobs:

Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

As it’s impossible for an HTML5/CSS/JavaScript app to be listed in the App Store or access many of the APIs, I’m sure Adobe will get right on that. :)

iPad Apps

Noted for Saturday:

• iBooks
• Pages
• Numbers
• Keynote
• Things
• Brushes
• OmniGraffle
• Twitterrific
• 1Password
• Netflix
• ABC
• NPR
• BBC News
• New York Times
• Instapaper
• Popular Science
• Real Racing
• Flight Control
• MLB At Bat
• AIM

Which apps are you eyeing?

Also: “eyeing” or “eying”?

Half Way

30 down, 30 to go.

But who’s counting?

Glow

The latest Apple cathedra— store.

TidBitsTips

The Best iPhone Camera Tip Ever -- The iPhone doesn’t capture a photo until you release the shutter button. Instead of tapping the button to take a photo, press and hold the button as you frame your shot. On the iPhone 3GS, you can still tap the screen to set a focus area with the button held down. When you’re ready to take the picture, release the button. This technique minimizes camera movement because you don’t have to both press and release the button with your finger.

via db.tidbits.com

iTunes Home Sharing

About five months ago Tabitha got a Nano and I decided to try using this approach to share our iTunes library with her user account on our iMac.

The benefit of the solution described in that support article is that both accounts can access the same shared music files but save the library data to separate files. So, for example, she can rate our music according to her tastes and I to mine.

The huge drawback is that if you make a change that affects the shared music files from one account, the other account won't know about the change until you update its library data. Which works fine most of the time unless you make a change that moves a music file to a new location within the shared music filesystem.

So, simply put, it worked but it didn't work well and toward the end it was clear that it wasn't going to work long-term. We were going to need a better solution.

Enter iTunes Home Sharing.

iTunes 9 has a feature called Home Sharing which doesn't do what I'd like, but I'll take it. Basically, they've taken the old Sharing feature which let you stream songs from one account to the other and made it possible to copy songs as well. This means that I can have my library, Tabitha can have hers, and we can copy whatever we like between them. It duplicates the media, but oh well.

It works particularly well for us because you have to use the same iTunes account which we already do.

Someday I really hope that we'll get to the point where iTunes will be smart enough to actually share an iTunes library between accounts. So that certain library data (like where the file lives in the filesystem) will be saved to a shared data file and other personal data (like the rating) will be shared to a personal data file. But since that doesn't seem to be in Apple's best interests, I'm glad to see this Home Sharing feature in iTunes 9.

Software Update

Add this to the growing list of things that are "finely tuned" in Snow Leopard. Previously, after Software Update had finished installing your updates and checking to see if there were any more, the header of the window still said, "There is new software for your computer!" Even if the follow-up check didn't find any.

Fixed. :)

Snow Leopard

I just pre-ordered Mac OS X 10.6 from the Apple Store. Looking forward to Friday!

Update:

Not only does Snow Leopard not require the entry of any serial numbers, but the standard version of Snow Leopard is a bootable “full install” disc that doesn’t actually check for the presence of Leopard in order to install. This also means that if, at a later time, you want to wipe your hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard, you won’t have to first install Leopard and then run a separate Snow Leopard upgrade on top of it.

via Macworld

That’s a relief.

iPhone 3GS

Leaning towards skipping this one. (Update: Or am I?) (Update #2: Yes, I probably am.) (Update #3: Argh!!!)