When I add an iTunes Smart Playlist to my iPhone 4, the tracks are not in the same order on the iPhone as they are on iTunes. When the iPhone is connected to iTunes, the playlist appears to be sorted correctly but on the device itself, it's out of order.
All of my playlists in iTunes are sorted in Album by Artist/Year order, and they occasionally sync the songs in the correct order, but then the order changes.
I am having this problem as well. Additionally, when I browse the iPhone's contents through iTunes, the playlist appears in the order I expect, but when I access that same playlist through the phone, the contents are jumbled. I assume this means that there is some kind of menu option in the phone that affects the order of the playlist contents, but I cannot find it. Anyone have any ideas?
I recommend adding the following rule to each smart playlist:
Playlist is Music
This should play on your iPhone the contents of each smart playlist in the order set through iTunes.
Hope this helps.
Adding the "Playlist is Music" rule does sort the order correctly but it loses the "live updating" feature on my iPhone which allows the list to be repopulated without syncing back to the PC. OK for short commutes but I need this live updating when away on holiday or I'm stuck with the same 25 song selection within a list ;-(
Adding "Playlist is Music" does not seem to be required on my iPhone or iPad, their playlists match the library that I auto-sync both devices to.
First, right-click on the playlist name in your iTunes library and select "Copy to play order". That saves the sort order of the playlist, and if you don't do that then the sorting on your device may not be what you expect.
If that does not help some of your smart playlists, then right-click on the playlist name in iTunes and select "Duplicate". Then get the new playlist sorted how you like and "lock" the sorting as described above, then delete the original playlist (re-name the copy if you'd like) and check/ change your sync settings to make sure the new playlist syncs to your device.
Simon Chiplin wrote:
Adding the "Playlist is Music" rule does sort the order correctly but it loses the "live updating" feature on my iPhone which allows the list to be repopulated without syncing back to the PC.
Live Updating on the device has by and large been broken since iOS 3, unless you have a very simple smart playlist. But if you include certain criteria like "Playlist Is ..." then Live Updating on the device doesn't work (even if the "source" playlist is synced to the device). There are a few other smart criteria that break LU.
Smart playlist contents in random order on iPhone 4
