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How do I create a Genius Playlist on my Apple iPhone?

Okay, so your article yesterday about Genius playlists in iTunes (see How to Create Genius Playlists in iTunes 8) has me intrigued and I'd like to experiment with it. But on my iPhone. Is that a possibility? That is, can I create a Genius playlist on my iPhone 3G or, I suppose, on an iPod Touch?


Dave's Answer:

Glad you enjoyed the earlier article. If you read my series of articles about the Genius feature in the latest version of iTunes (8.x), you'll see that I started out rather skeptical and become a convert as I watched how quickly it came up with interesting playlists based on my own extensive music collection.

Would it work on my iPhone where I have a lot of albums, but a lot less than in my big iTunes library? I wasn't sure, so I tested it out...

First thing I found was that when you're playing a song on the iPhone (and, an important caveat up front, you must be running iPhone firmware 2.1 or higher and iTunes 8.0 or higher on the computer with which you sync the phone) is that the nifty little genius "atom" icon now shows up immediately below the progress bar in iPod mode:

iphone ipod playing song genius (free apple iphone help)

If you haven't enabled the Genius capability in iTunes, however, the iPhone knows and will complain about it (no worries, read this to learn how to enable Genius playlists: Turn Genius Playlists On in iTunes 8). If you have, however, it's astonishingly fast: tap the Genius icon and almost instantaneously you'll be looking at a Genius playlist based on the current song:

iphone ipod loading genius playlist (free apple iphone help)

Well, alright, it takes a second or two. But still, it's darn fast:

iphone ipod first genius playlist (free apple iphone help)

Curious, I clicked "Refresh" and found that it again very quickly created a second quite good playlist of songs based on Can't Get It Out Of My Head by the Electric Light Orchestra:

iphone ipod genius playlist refreshed (free apple iphone help)

Finally, with Genius Playlists enabled, there's a new entry on the Playlist area of the iPod on the Apple iPhone too:

iphone ipod genius on playlist screen (free apple iphone help)

Now truth be told, as much as it's an interesting feature, i don't know how often I'll be using it. I know plenty of people really groove on the playlist capability of the iPod and, by extension, iPhone, but I have found that I love the variety of having it jump genres in my music library randomly, so I'm fine if I go from ELO to Bach to Kate Bush to Lionel Hampton (though that'd be one weird radio station!)

Nonetheless, it is an interesting and potentially cool addition to the capabilities of both the iPhone and the iPod Touch. If you find you're using it, pipe up and tell us about it. Thanks!


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Categorized: iPhone and Cell Phone Help   (Article 8505, Written by )
Tagged: apple itunes, genius playlist, ipod touch, itunes music store, itunes playlists
Previous: How do I create a Genius playlist in Apple iTunes 8?
Next: How can I turn iTunes into a sticky mini-player in Spaces?




Reader Comments To Date: 2

Sue said, on March 31, 2009 6:41 AM:

Hi I've read your articles re Apple genius and Iphone. I have the latest uptates on both and I have genuis enabled and made playlists on itunes and synced them to my iphone but when I use my iphone the genius 'atom' icon does not appear and when i try to play one of my genius playlists on my iphone it just keeps repeating the first song!What am I doing wrong? Thanks

ansia said, on May 22, 2012 7:44 PM:

thanks for the grat resource..!

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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