[apostacy]

Anyone know when the smart playlists are supposed to update on an ipod? I created a smart playlist that picks the least recently played songs with 3 stars or more and the playlist is supposed to "update live" (or whatever that setting/option is). I"ve been using that playlist for about 2 weeks and I hear a lot of the same songs--a lot of songs haven't dropped off the list yet even though they've been played all the way through.

[Randman]

You have to sync your iPod with iTunes and you have to have iTunes set for auto-sync (though I think an semi-auto sync will also do the trick).

[apostacy]

So the ipod isn't going to move songs on and off a smart playlist itself? I have to have iTunes do that?

[icruise]

I was *positive* that smart playlists updated on the iPod, but testing a few playlists just now on my new 60Gb iPod didn't seem to bear this out.

A little searching led me to this discussion on Apple's web site (hopefully a direct link will work):

Updater 2005-06-26 disables Smart Playlists on iPod

To make a long story short, this is a bug. Smart playlists should update on the iPod, but they haven't since the 6-26-05 updater was released, and subsequent updaters haven't corrected the problem yet. Supposedly it is "being worked on."

[icruise]

Oh, and I just tested this on my 40GB 3rd generation iPod, and smart playlists work as expected.

[ort888]

It works on my Nano. It must just be a bug for some people.

[icruise]

Yes, it works on the nano, but not on the regular 4G iPods. The software for the 3rd generation models and earlier hasn't been updated for quite a while, so it's not affected by the bug.

[apostacy]

Thanks for the responses folks. I hope they get this fixed soon.