When will Podcast app support playlists?

I am getting a bit frustrated with this. I have a new iPod nano 6th generation and cannot get podcasts to work in Smart playlists so I can play them in the gym. I found a way of working around the Podcasts app on my iPad and iPhone - by deleting it.

The original question was "when will the Podcasts app support Smart Playlists?" We are now four months down the line and no closer to an answer. Some of us have provided feedback to Apple (no response from Apple), there have been ten pages of complaints on this discussion (no response from Apple), many adverse media reviews (no response from Apple).

It really does not say anything positive about an Apple app when so many people are trying to work around it, or deleting it or downloading better alternatives from non-Apple sources.

I have mentioned this on a previous post, but some years ago, there was a problem with Smart playlists. At that time, someone commented that Apple does keep an eye on the discussions and was dealing with the issue. The problem was resolved some weeks later. I had hoped that the same would happen here, but no such luck.

Sue,

The only way I was able to gain sanity and control of this situation was to delete the Podcast app. After that, playlists of all sorts played just fine in the Music app. That made me wonder what on earth Apple went through all the trouble for in the first place.

What a headache all around!

I agree! I would happily delete the Podcast app from my 6th gen nano but I have not found a way to do it.

Sue,

I was also hoping Apple would have done something about this. Search google for "Apple please restore playlists of podcasts". They won't let me post the link.

Deleting the Podcast app doesn't solve the problem. It may give you access to your old playlists. But there is still no way to create new playlists of new podcasts. The podcasts I subscribe to change about once a week. Some of them are kind of short, and I'd like to be able group them together so I can listen to them uninterrupted. It is mind-boggling that Apple would take away this simple, important function, and has let all these months without doing anything to fix it.

If you havn't aready done so, tell crApple what you think. http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

This is taking way too loooooooooooooong!

What is interesting is I have an the original iPad. When it was updated and the Podcast app appeared it did not take away my ability to make playlists. It is awkward and almost as non-user friendly to use but I can make a playlists. So the disappearance of "podcasts" as an option in the iPhone list is bizarre. Why is Compilations, Composers, Genres, and iTunes U there but not podcast. Curious and extremely frustrating. It is broken and needs to be fixed. Why doesn't Apple care they care?

couldn't agree more. Apple should be able to fix if it is to stay at the forefront!

Finally version 1.2 of the Podcast app will show podcasts synced from iTunes and will allow creation of stations which you can set to play oldest to newest or newest to oldest.

Supports On-The-Go podcast playlists too.

iCloud syncing of play counts and positions across all devices sounds good.

Apple does listen. They are a big company and sometimes things don't happen very fast.

It took awhile, but it did happen. For this I'm grateful.

Now we have to see what the app can do.

I agree. At last we have a positive response from Apple.

I downloaded the updated app last night and will have a play with it.

Hmmm....worked with my iPhone but won't show playlists in my iPad. Still trying to see what the differences in settings are.

Does it support manual playlists set up in iTunes and does it sync OTA with iTunes Match enabled?

Claims that it supports syncinc of podcasts created in iTunes -- but I don't see it. Have not seen them sync.

Claims that "stations" can be sorted "newest to oldest and oldest to newest". Well, for one, I still only see "most recent" as a sort order (so only newest to oldest, not oldest to newest) and it still groups the episodes by podcast, so if you have multiple episodes of different podcasts, it will sort them only by the most recent episode of each.

I tried it tonight, and it didn't work. "Download fail" or something like that. I created an "on-the-go" playlist but it wouldn't play them, and I had to load them one by one as always. Anyone else have this problem?