Smart playlists

Hi Vregat,
I understand that you are missing the artwork in your Smart Playlists. I know it's important for your music to be well organized and to look good, so I'm happy to help with this!
Unless you have explicitly configured artwork for a Smart Playlist, it will show the cog when looking at all of your playlists. It will only show the related album artwork once you've opened the playlist. You can see how to set artwork for your playlists and other items here:

iTunes 12 for Mac: Add artwork to songs and other items
iTunes 12 for Windows: Add artwork to songs and other items

Change a playlist’s artwork

You can personalize any playlist by adding your own artwork.

1. Click near the top left of the iTunes window, then choose Music from the pop-up menu.

2. Click My Music.

   

3. Select a playlist from the sidebar on the left.

4. Do one of the following:

   • Click the artwork area at the top left of the playlist, then choose an image file.

   • Drag an image file to the artwork area.

   

5. Click Done.

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Cheers!

Hi Vregat - I've got the same issue. My playlists all have designated icons / artwork, chosen in iTunes. I explicitly configured that artwork a while ago. Those icons appear in iTunes, and they appear at the top of the playlist in iOS after I select it, but they don't appear when I look at a long list of playlists - I've just got that colored gear icon. I think in iOS 9 I saw the list of playlist icons in the Music app, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

I'm not an Apple Music subscriber. Are you? Maybe that's an issue? I don't know why it would be, but who knows - I'm surprised how few threads I've found about this issue, so perhaps it's not a widespread problem.

In the past I've been surprised at how low a percentage of people actually use smart playlists - and that's probably even smaller these days, with Apple Music streaming. So it could be a widespread problem that lots of people don't notice.

I'd be curious to know if anyone isn't having this issue.

I just realized the "dumb" playlists are fine - those icons / pictures are appearing properly on my iPhone. They're set up in iTunes exactly the same way. So who knows what's going on.

Thank you for using the Apple Support Community. Due to the nature of your issue, you may find more information by using another one of Apple's support resources:

Contact Apple Support

Hi there,

Unfortunately I experienced that too, there is a bug in iOS 10, definitely. I contacted Apple Support via chat and after 15 minutes chatting they asked if they can call me to discuss. They did and I spoke to one person before eventually my problem was escalated to a manager. I spent almost an hour on phone with them, explained everything slowl 10 times, sent screenshots when on chat. I also allowed them to connect remotely to my iMac so I could show them my screen and smart paylists in iTunes and showed them how I copy them to my iPhone and them explained how I set artwork pictures for every smart playlists. And I got exactly the same problem as others: can see artwork pictures for every smart playlists when I enter that smart playlists but not on a "Playlists" screen. Also, interestingly, I can see artwork pictures on a main "Library" screen under "Recently added".

They tried to convince me that is "expected behaviour" but I kindly told them I do not buy that BS - everything worked fine in previous versions of iOS. Eventually they said they will pass it to engineering team and will call me back with an update next week. So, guys, I will update here as soon as I hear from them.

For now, anyone experiencing the same issue please contact Apple Support and get this reported here https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action. Please.

Regards,

Hi all,

I got a phone call from Apple Support mid of last week but I was busy and then out without access to my mac so couldn't update my post here.

I had a bad feeling when I was awaiting call from Apple Support. And I was right - all I could hear was: "This is expected behaviour." I started arguing but gave up after few minutes. They only suggested to log a feedback online here http://www.apple.com/uk/contact/feedback.html

I've just done it. Unfortunately that's the only way to do anything with this issue. I believe if all people start sending similar feedback we might see this fixed in one of the next updates.

😟😟😟

Hi,

I've just installed 10.1 update and they fixed this problem! I can now see all artwork icons on Playlists screen 🙂🙂