As if Apple had read my mind (or read this post), iTunes 4.9 and the accompanying iPod updater released today addresses every single one of my sync frustrations. No more using an external RSS aggregator to subscribe to podcasts, transmit them into iTunes, and then into the iPod. No more manually removing casts I’ve already heard*. Suddenly it’s all tightly integrated, totally elegant, just works. How Apple of them. The new podcast directory built into the iTunes Music Store is pretty cool too, but has some growing to do.
* Actually this remains to be tested – there’s a preference that lets you tell iTunes to keep copies of all casts you haven’t yet heard. How “haven’t yet heard” is defined remains to be seen. I’m assuming that the 29MB iPod updater I just installed includes a mechanism for determining whether I’ve listened to a cast all the way through; on the next sync it should remove that cast from my hard disk as well.
The play count is only updated when a song plays through the last instant of a file. So, Fast Forwarding doesn’t increment the play count, but scrubbing to the end of a song will.
Excellent – that’s exactly the right way to design the feature. Prior to now, the iPod had no awareness of play count (as iTunes does). I wonder if the new capability will also mean that the play count for non-podcast tricks is carried between iTunes and iPod. Totally unimportant, just wondering.
Previously the iPod has tracked playcounts. When you sync an iPod after playing a bunch of tracks, you can see the playcount numbers update. However smart playlists on the iPod didn’t update until you sync. Haven’t checked but hopefully this has changed with the latest update.
Alistair – Thanks for the update. I admit I haven’t checked that feature for a couple of years. In the early days the playcount definitely wasn’t updated. That must have been introduced in the interim and I missed it.