"Sort by" options frozen in list view for podcasts

I've started another thread on these issues here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9362973#9362973

I've been trying to get a useful response from Apple support without luck. They just respond vaguely about wanting to help me but needing more information and then give instructions for submitting a concern to individual podcasts, which indicates that they neither read my email nor intend to assist me. I am not giving up, and am determined to find a solution to these bugs or force Apple to fix what are some really blatant problems with regard to podcast management. I've submitted multiple feedback forms on this - without response of course.

ISSUE#1: Smart Play Lists Don't Work As Intended
I have many podcasts with the category 'Design' and none of them show
up in a smart playlist that is made to isolate that category. I tried
creating a smart play list for the category 'Design' and nothing shows
up in it. I've checked and double-checked the settings, deleted it and
restarted, nothing works. I have close to 30 podcasts with the
category 'Design' that should be called by that smart play list. I can
provide screenshots to prove I'm creating the play list correctly and
that i have those podcasts in my list.

I Noticed that this is not consistent. I created a similar smart play
list for grouping the categories 'News' and 'News & Politics' and that
seems to work. It also worked for the 'Technology' category, but NOT
for the category 'Tech News'. This is very strange. It made me think
I was just missing something, but that does not seem to be the case
after restarting and rechecking the play list multiple times. I even
have a smart play list set up to pull all podcasts in the category
'Software How-To' and it seems to just pull one out of 20+ that I have
in my list. Bizarre.

ISSUE #2: Smart Playlist Displaying Old Podcasts That Were Deleted
Within the smart play lists that do semi-work, they seem to be pulling
podcasts that I don't even have downloaded, and from the past? My
News & Politics smart play list for example: It contains podcasts from
2008 that I do not even have on my hard drive any more. Some are
checked, some are unchecked. These old podcasts should certainly NOT
be showing up in my smart play list since they're not even in my
master list or on my hard drive. When I try to play them it of course
tells me it cannot find the original file(all my podcasts are set to
just keep the most recent episode).

ISSUE #3: Podcast List Sorting By Column
The podcast list only sorts by release date WITHIN A SPECIFIC PODCAST,
but does not sort your list of all podcasts by release date. That
sorting feature is pointless if you only keep one episode (most
recent) of all podcasts. This is a blatant issue and should be fixed.

Additionally, it is not possible to sort by the other column headers,
like time, category, artist, etc. This is a feature that is assumed
with lists like this and as a UX designer I'm appalled that Apple has
neglected this functionality and made it so difficult to manage the
list.

ISSUE #4: Podcast Categorization
Podcast authors have the freedom to create their own categories
obviously, but they often categorize incorrectly and make mistakes
that defeat the purpose of categorization. For example, there's 'News
& Politics', 'Politics & News', Politics and News', 'Politics & amp; News'.
It defeats the whole purpose of categorizing. On top of that, of the
200+ podcasts to which I subscribe, many of them are categorized
incorrectly. I've sent in concerns to the authors many times without
responses or results. Relying on the authors to correctly categorize is not a real solution. The categorization system is broken, and the
users(myself) should be able to customize the categories themselves.

ISSUE #5:
When viewing podcasts by category, in a list(via the category grid view), you can't sort the individual category list by columns such as 'date added' etc. Unlike in the master podcasts list - which gives no visual indicator that the column is sortable - this list does in fact display an up/down arrow when you click on the column heading. Nevertheless, the order of the column doesn't change at all. No matter what column I add, none of them resort the list, even though there's an arrow when i click the column heading indicating that it is sorted based on that column.

I suspect there are more bugs, but this should be enough for now, eh?

Is there an obvious reason for this problem, or solution?

It's the currently designed behaviour.

Should I just reinstall iTunes?

No, it won't change anything...

Feedback goes here.

tt2

kizkij wrote:
<snip>... The message I gather is that if you have a problem, there is no solution, it is intrinsic. But you suggest I register my experience with Apple.

It depends on the problem - the one you described is an aspect of the design of the software which cannot be resolved by reinstalling or obviously worked around using some other features of the software. In this case providing product feedback to Apple is the only way to effect a change. While there are no obvious signs of Apple leaping to implement every improvment suggested by the end users they are certainly unlikely to address issues they are not even aware of... As for any other problems you may have - keep posting - these boards are full of solutions as well questions...

Going back to your original problem... while the Podcast sort options are set in stone you could create a smart playlist to gather tracks from one or more podcasts and then sort these in any order you choose.

tt2