I use Shuffle Songs a lot on my iPod Classic. It doesn't seem to be very random. It appears to grab a group of artists and shuffle them for a while then grab another group... and so on. It also repeats songs fairly often - which with a library the size of mine, I wouldn't expect for days - not hours. Can I make this feature play more random material?
In truly random play, it is within the realm of probability that you could have an entire album play sequentially. What you actually want (and you are by no means alone- Apple even added this into iTunes) is something less random and more evenly distributed. Sadly, although it's possible in iTunes, the settings don't carry over to the iPod.
Another thing to understand about how Shuffle works. When you select Shuffle, your iPod essentially generates a playlist which includes all of the songs in a pseudo-random order. As long as you don't turn it off or navigate to another playlist, you'll each song once. However, once you turn your iPod off, sync it, navigate to a different playlist, watch a video, etc, a new playlist would be generated, with no relation to the first. So, you could end up hearing the same songs over again. One way around this is to set up a playlist with a criterion such as "last played is not within the last x days" and then shuffle that. As songs are played, they would be removed from the playlist for a time an you wouldn't hear them over again.
In truly random play, it is within the realm of probability that you could have an entire album play sequentially. What you actually want (and you are by no means alone- Apple even added this into iTunes) is something less random and more evenly distributed. Sadly, although it's possible in iTunes, the settings don't carry over to the iPod.
Another thing to understand about how Shuffle works. When you select Shuffle, your iPod essentially generates a playlist which includes all of the songs in a pseudo-random order. As long as you don't turn it off or navigate to another playlist, you'll each song once. However, once you turn your iPod off, sync it, navigate to a different playlist, watch a video, etc, a new playlist would be generated, with no relation to the first. So, you could end up hearing the same songs over again. One way around this is to set up a playlist with a criterion such as "last played is not within the last x days" and then shuffle that. As songs are played, they would be removed from the playlist for a time an you wouldn't hear them over again.
Of course (after having the obvious pointed out DOAH) I'm turning it off or navigating elsewhere & returning. It makes tons of sense. I'll have to give some thought to creating a "shuffle playlist" of my own.
I don't know if your question is answered yet or if you've tried this already: go to iTunes and select Edit > Preferences > Playback. Go down to Smart Shuffle and change your options to your liking.
