Where is iTunes DJ in iTunes 11?

The solution for the missing iTunes DJ seems to be to create a smart playlist with the kind of filtering you want (like 'Media Kind' 'is' 'Music' to select your whole music library) and 'select by' 'random'.

Alan Templeton wrote:

The solution for the missing iTunes DJ seems to be to create a smart playlist with the kind of filtering you want (like 'Media Kind' 'is' 'Music' to select your whole music library) and 'select by' 'random'.

No offense, but that is a solution to missing iTunes DJ like a prosthetic arm is a solution to cluster bombing.

Smart playlists as a replacement for DJ? You still don't get the remote voting, which was the great future for me.

You're right. I never used that feature.

nice one Alan, that looks like something interesting so I can at least listen to music in randomly order when working 🙂

Wasn't it Steve Jobs who always wanted to make things easier? DJ is ONE click. A smart playlist is not!

iTunes DJ is mostly still there, just re-arranged and renamed "up next" (remember when it used to be called "party shuffle"?). Here's a couple points that I think people have missed in the discussion so far:

1. "Up Next" does stay open if you use the "mini player" (at least for a little while, but eventually closes itself).
2. To play a random song from your library,click the "Songs" button, then double-cilck one of the "all" items in the "Column Browser". If you don't see the column browser, go to the "view" menu and turn it on.
3. As previously noted, the "random" button is now the squiggly icon thing, just to the right of the currently playing track (actually I shouldn't say "now" because it's always been the there since iTunes 1.0. It's a case of "the more things change the more they stay the same"). With that turned on, "Now Playing" works almost exactly as "iTunes DJ" used to.
4. In the "Remote" app for iPhone/iPod/iPad, touch and hold a song to get the "Add to Up Next" option.

Now the bad:

1. You can't open a playlist in a new window, so you can't simultaneously look at the songs in a playlist while browsing the library (useful when you were trying to remember if you added a song already)
2. You can't change the number of tracks that show in "Up Next".
3. You have to click an icon in "Up Next" to see the history.
4. The "Remote" app doesn't have any "voting" options (though I don't really know where to look for them, since I never used them before)

For me, the number of tracks and the history are minor issues (I never bothered with them in iTunes DJ anyway), and I never used the Remote "voting" feature. So the only real loss as far as I'm concerned is the ability to open up a second window.

Message was edited by: Joseph Delaney (fixed all the "next up"s to "up next"s)

In the Remote app, i don't see my playlist. How do you do that ? you need to connect ?

fvil wrote:

In the Remote app, i don't see my playlist. How do you do that ? you need to connect ?

Tap the gear icon to add your library (home sharing has to be turned on). It will show a number. Then go to iTunes, click the "remote" button (upper right, near the itunes store button) and type in the number.

Not to mention, limiting the playlists guests could vote from was a great feature too... Sad that they insist on removing great features without warning.

Think I've almost sorted it ! (For iPhone at least) When you first open the app on your iPhone and select your music library, select Songs, and then Shuffle, it's as simple as that, iTunes now shuffles your entire library and constantly updates like iTunes DJ used too, delete songs and new ones are added automatically. Hope this helps.

once again: Wasn't it Steve Jobs who always wanted to make things easier? DJ is ONE click. A smart playlist and UP NEXT is not!

I too am quite fond of iTunes DJ, but after a few minutes of playing around with Up Next it seems like a big improvement.

First, it's always on, so whatever "playlist" you're listening to, you can manually insert something into the play order by finding a song and clicking "Add to Up Next." Here a playlist can be any selection of songs, be it an album, a genre, all songs from an artist, or an actual playlist. It's random or in order by your choice.

(You can replicate old iTunes DJ playlist behavior by clicking on Songs to show your whole library, playing a song, and clicking the random icon. If you then look at the Up Next list, you'll see a bunch of random songs from your library. Add and rearrange to your heart's content...)

Second, using "Add to Up Next" puts the selected song at the end of *your* selections, rather than at the end of the current iTunes DJ playlist. Dragging a song from the library to the Up Next list appears to be identical to using the "Add to Up Next" pop-up menu item.

Third, it works in the mini player, too.

All that said, I haven't had a chance to try any of this with the iPhone Remote app. If it doesn't work reasonably well there, it will be a big drag. But given the thought they appear to have put into this feature, I'm hopeful...

Yeah..I can almost replicate DJ if it is just ME doing the remote (I've just been playing with the new remote and up next functionality)...but I've lost the ability to have party guests vote for songs (and, as stated above, NOT have the ability to change volume and skip tracks). 🙂