JTDimino.com

Well, I was pondering what my next post was going to be about, and after my experiences today, I decided I’d do a post about something that I realized really bugs me: the way iPod playlists work (specifically on the iPhone).  Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think Apple has improved iPod playlists over the years; the most marked improvement was the ability to create and edit playlists straight on your phone.  However, there is still a major problem, in my opinion, with iPod playlists on the iPhone: there’s no way to sort, refine, or easily browse through playlists.

Now, this isn’t a very big problem with a really small playlist with twenty songs or less.  But if you are prone to making huge playlists like I am (just made a “Party” playlist of over 1300 songs – for variety during shuffle), the lack of any sort of ability to easily go through a playlist can be a major pain.  The most annoying part about it is how potentially easily it could be to resolve: Apple already has “Artists”  and ‘”Albums” tabs for the iPod, so why not add the ability to browse through all of the artists and/or albums within a given playlist?  At the very least, they could add an alphabetical quick-browse option on the right side of the screen like they have on a lot of their other tabs already.  It’s really a very inconvenient omission.

^Herein lies the problem.  Note lack of browsing options within playlist.

I don’t want to be too pessimistic however; as late in the game as it is for Apple, they have a pretty solid record for making necessary and important improvements, albeit very slowly and steadily.  My only hope is that they hurry up on this one – while I’m no programmer, it seems like it would be a fairly simple fix.