An iTunes 9 annoyance

With the latest version of Apple's erstwhile music playing app--now the 800 MB do-it-all gorilla known as iTunes 9--came a total revamp of the iTunes store. And while there's no denying it's prettier, it has also introduced an annoyance that I can no longer overlook.

Take a look at this screenshot (click to enlarge):

Notice anything odd? Yep. All the album names are truncated. I know that there's an album with some Rachmaninoff and that it's probably related to the piano rather than the greek letter pi, but I have no other immediate visual information about the album. Hovering my mouse over the album does nothing. Clicking the "i" information button brings up a pop-up that tells me this album is entitled "Rachmaninoff plays Ra..."

Excuse me, but WTF? I had no idea that the Egyptian sun god wrote piano music. OK, my incredulity is forced. You get my point. But at least the track names are all there, you say. And yes, it's true. In this preview window, the track names are all present and accounted for in full. So why then, if I click the "Album Page" link to see the recording's dedicated page, am I presented with this:

While I finally get to see what the full album title is, now all the track titles are truncated. I have to hover the pointer over the track name to see it in full. It's as if iTunes is some sort of control freak who doesn't want you to know too much lest it feel it's loosing control of the situation.

The worst thing is, there's no way to expand the track name (or any other) field, so in this case, I can't find out the full artist name (Zenph Studios and Serg...) unless I preview the track and look in the iTunes display window (Zenph Studios and Sergei Rachmaninoff). Sure seems like a lot of work to find information that's on the cover of any CD. (Incidentally, don't you think it's noble of Sergei to let the studio take first billing; I guess it's easy to be magnanimous when you're dead.)

So yeah, the new iTunes store is pretty, but at least the old one had some substance. I logged a feedback note with Apple about this issue, but I must say crappy UI design is pretty rare in an Apple product. All the more reason why when something like this does get into a release, its so startling.

Nike+iPod + podcast hack

For my birthday a few months back, my wife kindly bought me a Nike+iPod unit to go along with my new red iPod nano. I must say, I'm seriously impressed with it. It worked flawlessly out of the box, and even before I calibrated the sensor, it was calculating my distance to within 10 percent. Now that it's calibrated, its accuracy is within 2 percent.

Previously, I was never one to listen to music while working out; I preferred the zen state your mind enters during a good run. But there are advantages to running to music, not the least of which is trying to keep up with a song whose tempo is just slightly faster than your normal pace--a great way to improve your speed.

But as any serious runner will tell you, it's also important to work on endurance by slowing down going for distance rather than speed. These are the times when running to music can push you faster than you want to go. In such cases, you could simply unplug your headphones and run without the music (the unit still works sans headphones), but to my mind, a good hour-long podcast (say, MacBreak Weekly... oh wait, that usually runs way overtime...) is the perfect accompaniment to a long, slow run.

Problem is, podcasts are for some reason not available in the Nike+iPod menu (I guess Apple never figured anyone would be crazy enough to listen to a podcast while running). This is where iTunes' smart playlist feature comes in handy once again (see my previous entry about rolling your own autofill feature for iPod nanos using smart playlists).

There are two solutions available, depending on how choosy you are about what you want to listen to. The first is to simply create a smart playlist that has all your most recent podcasts in it. This way, when you select the playlist from the Nike+ menu, you'll get the first podcast in the list.

In iTunes, select "New Smart Playlist..." from the File menu. Then choose Genre from the lefthand dropdown menu, "is" from the next one over and then type "Podcast" in the field at the right. Then click the "+" button to get another rule and select Date Added from the lefthand menu, "is in the last" from the middle menu and "1 weeks" in the righthand field (see screenshot).


If you want to exclude any podcasts from this list, simply add another rule that states "Name... is not... [name of excluded podcast]".


A second option is to create separate smart playlists for every podcast you'll want to run to. It's a little more time consuming, but it gives you more flexibility. In this case, select a new smart playlist, create a rule that states "Name... contains... [podcast name]", then add a rule to exclude all but the most recent episode: "Date Added... is in the last... 1 weeks".


Repeat for all your favourite podcasts. Then connect your nano and under the "Music" tab of your iPod (not Podcasts), make sure to check the new smart playlists you have just created and click "Apply" at the bottom right of the iTunes window.

Assuming you already have these podcasts on your iPod, the new playlists won't even take up any more precious space on your iPod since they are just a different way of addressing the audio file, one that the Nike+ menu can see.

Now, get out there and go on a nice long, relaxing jog!

Roll-your-own autofill feature for iPod Nano

When Apple released the iPod Shuffle back in 2005, one of the most lauded features was "Autofill," which automatically fills your Shuffle with a random (or not-so-random, depending on how you set it up) selection of music from your library or from the playlist of your choice. When the Nano was released that fall, however, many people lamented its lack of the Autofill feature. I'm not sure what Apple's rationale is for leaving this feature off the Nano, especially given the fact that at one point they sold a 1 GB Nano--the same capacity as their biggest Shuffle at the time--but when I recently received my own Nano, I too felt that this would be a pretty nice feature to have.

But there is a way you can set up your own Autofill feature. Here's how (in the interests of citing sources, I will admit that a part of this idea came from reading a post by David Charlap on the Macintouch site. That said, it isn't rocket science, and I'm sure many people have figured this trick out on their own):

First, in iTunes, select "New Smart Playlist" from the File menu. Now, say you want to autofill from your jazz collection. Select "Genre" from the left-hand dropdown menu, choose "is" from the next parameter, and type in "Jazz" in the field at the right (see screenshot).



Next, click the "+" button to add a parameter, select "Last Played" in the left-hand dropdown list, "is not in the last" from the next parameter, and choose a timeframe (in this example, I have chosen the last two weeks, but you can set any timeframe you like). Then check the "Limit to" checkbox and decide on how much size you want to dedicate to this Autofill playlist. This will depend on your iPod's capacity. The nice thing about such a playlist, however, is that you can have several. So, for instance, on my own 4 GB Nano, I have a 1 GB Autofill classical playlist and a 2 GB jazz playlist.



You can have iTunes fill the playlist randomly, by rating, or by several other criteria. Make sure you also check "Live updating". Click "OK" and name the playlist in iTunes. Finally, attach your iPod, and under the Music tab, click "Sync music" and "Selected playlists:" and check only the smart playlist you just created. Then click Apply.



One drawback to this method is that iTunes only updates the playlist after you connect your iPod, so you'll have to resync, but to my mind, that's a minor irritation.

As people's digital music libraries continue to grow, I imagine Apple will eventually get around to implementing Autofill for the Nanos and perhaps even the larger capacity iPods, but until that day comes, this little hack does the job pretty well.