Sort Coverflow by Album not Artist

Coverflow in iTunes and on the Classic are the same. where do you think it gets the data from. There are no sort options on the iPod, it is all done in iTunes and then transferred to the iPod.

I also have the issue with coverflow.
However i have a different perspective.
Wouldn't it make more sense to sort by Album Artist.... and not Album?

If you sort just by Album, then the name of album will determine the sorting.
This means multiple albums from an artist could be spread around.

If sorted by Album Artist however, all their albums would be grouped together.

Album Artist is different to sorting just by Artist, which can be different for each track on an album.

If you look at the latest version of iTunes you will see there is an option to sort by album+artist. Or you can sort on artist alone.

That's what I said a few posts above yours. Totally agreed.

I have found from reading the posts that most of the people have not tried anything. They just throw up their hands in disgust and blame the machine. This is my first iPod and I am new the Mac's in the past few months. The one thing I learned about computers in general is the more you experiment the more you learn..

Wickel5

I think you'll find a lot of people on this thread HAVE tried to sort the problem themselves and have run out of ideas. Hence trying to find out if others have succeeded. It's fairly clear that there is no workaround to this (apart from renaming huge numbers of tags) and hence the frustration that the coverflow on the classic does not have the same functionality as coverflow on iTunes.

So, given that you believe we should experiment more and whinge less, let's have your test results....

jb
🙂

jockblue
Its got nothing to do with winging it, its got to do with thinking about things and trying things. Coverflow works exactly the same on your iPod as it does in iTunes. This is where it get the data from(iTunes) sorted however you chose. I have never had a iPod before but I figured it out. My coverflow works perfectly. Also I have posted a similiar response to this at least six times. People don't read. People are prepared to blame Apple for inferior product when there is nothing wrong with it.

It's not a matter of trying or finding a workaround, and I don't see anyone blaming "the machine". It's basically a feature request we're looking for.

No offense, but you don't sound like you actually read the thread.

wickel5,

have you actually read through the thread to understand the problems everyone is having with cover flow? maybe instead of posting your same response a 7th time, you should get the hint that maybe you missed something along the way and reread the thread. 😉

cover flow does NOT work exactly the same on the iPod Classic (as of iPod software v1.0.1) as it does in iTunes v7.4.1.2. Unless you are a programmer on the iTunes team, how would you know how the data is transferred to the iPod? From a developer's point of view, I can assure you the data sent to the iPod is not sorted by how you sort Cover Flow view in iTunes. If that were the case, you'd have to re-synch your entire music collection every time you sorted your iTunes cover flow differently. It's the *iPod software's* job to utilize the ID3 tag information in the music files to sort and display them properly.

Since the iPod software is not the same as iTunes, there's always the possibility that a feature that both software packages offer (i.e. cover flow) will behave differently from one another (such as in this case).

Key differences in the Cover Flow features:

1. iTunes groups tracks from a compilation album into one album in cover flow with "Various Artists" as the displayed artist (as long as all tracks have the Compilation attribute checked in the ID3 tag); the iPod cover flow seems to ignore the Compilation attribute and displays each track as a separate album. *This is a bug*

2. iTunes allows you to sort by album, artist, album+artist, etc., iPod only sorts by Artist (this isn't a bug but makes #1 (above) even more annoying by spreading the 1-track "albums" out across the entire library instead of at least showing all the mini-albums next to each other if grouped by album name.)

3. iTunes lets you view playlists in cover flow mode, whereas iPod only lets you use cover flow to explore your entire library. (Not a bug, but a nice-to-have many people have mentioned)

4. On the iPod, if you have multiple albums with the same name (e.g. "Greatest Hits"), if you click on one of those albums to see the track list, it displays all the tracks of all albums with that album name.

So, please read the thread carefully and think before you post the same uninformative reply again.

Thanks,
Rob

I don't know about anyone blaming the machine, but there is a lot of finger pointing and moaning going on regarding this issue.

For me the bottom line is this, I can workaround the coverflow "bug" in a manner that works for me (I posted my method up thread). It serves my purposes and in no way affects my enjoyment of my music on the ipod.

For a lot of folks any kind of workaround seems unacceptable. I guess they'd rather yak about it here in hopes Apple does something about it.

To me coverflow is neat little feature but completely unecessary. On that basis I can live with it the way it is.

jt

Well your obviously much smarter than I. Your having a problem getting your data to sort properly mine is sorted on album and artist just like iTunes. The Greatest Hits issue is the only thing you got right. It is a problem that I solved by including the artist name in the title. I never said the software is the same, however the results are the same. With respect to resyncing all music, most programmers will know that once the data has been transferred once only changes are updated, that's why the first sync takes the longest. Its interesting to note that we both have the same software/hardware, mine works but apparently yours doesn't.

Well your (you're) obviously much smarter than I (me).

lol, apparently.

you don't seem to read anything thoroughly. or maybe it's just a matter of comprehension. you misunderstood my point about the resyncing... I was just saying that the iPod is not going to resync anything just because you click a different sort-by column in iTunes. Sorting on a column in iTunes only changes how the data is rendered *within iTunes*. It does not change the source data, nor does it make any changes on the iPod.

maybe i'm wasting my time trying to help you understand what i thought was a simple explanation of the problem. if you're happy with how your cover flow works, fantastic! 😉

Rob

Adding my support to this topic. Coverflow by album would be a great feature that Apple could easily add to the Classic.

I must apologize on one item. After a lot of testing compilations do not work properly. I have figured out how to make it work for compilations, but it is not a very elegant solution. My apologies.

Ditto. And as the voice of reason Weishaupt suggested, I've left feedback here http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html