Smart playlists have been a feature of iTunes since version 3.0 (circa 2002), and they provide a means for you to create automatically-updated playlists that fit a certain criteria. For me, they serve as a hands-off way to stay up-to-date on my latest music and Podcasts, as well as a repository for a certain genre of music. To create a smart playlist, click on "File" and select "New Smart Playlist" (or you can use the command-option-n keyboard shortcut).

If you want a playlist that contains only holiday music, you could specify that the playlist include all songs with either the "Christmas" or "Chanukah" genre tag on it. Because smart playlists auto-update, you needn't worry about adding songs to it: as long as the track's tags meet the criteria, it is automatically included in the playlist -- unless, of course, you choose the "limit to" option, which limits the the tracks in the playlist based on your choosing.

Read more for five of my favorite smart playlists, as well as criteria for how to create them.

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Be sure to check the end of this post for details on your chance to win a free copy of Playlist Alarm Clock!

We covered Chilli X last year, with their release of the successful iPhone to-do application, "Done" (iTunes link), and again with myCal, their app for creating custom calendar wallpapers for your iPhone lock screen (be sure to check out the free, user-generated wallpapers they're making available). They've been pretty quiet for a while, updating and tweaking Done (now at version 1.7), handling an App Store rejection of their own, and working on a newly-released app: Playlist Alarm Clock.

Playlist Alarm Clock is not necessarily a new or novel idea, but it's well-implemented. It's an iPhone app which allows you to create playlists, one for falling asleep and one for waking up. You can configure the length of time the sleep playlist will play, and how long it will take to fade out, as well as a fade-in time for the wake-up playlist. Setting times and fades comes down to a couple of taps, and adding songs to the playlists is done with a familiar iPod interface with full access to your library and playlists. If you're generally drowsy in the morning, you're covered as well: the snooze time can be configured to five, ten, fifteen or thirty minutes and is just a groggy tap away.

As is often the case, there are a few things I'd love to see enhanced. First, a night mode, ala the excellent Night Stand (iTunes link), which would let Playlist Alarm Clock function more appropriately as an always-on clock. Currently, the time display is large and easy to see, but the brightness of the interface is not ideal for bedside use. Second -- and this is really my only other complaint -- removing songs from the playlist doesn't seem to be an intuitive process. Accidentally tapping the wrong song during playlist creation seems to be a pretty permanent blunder, requiring a do-over of the playlist creation sequence. Beyond that, this app does exactly what the wrapper says, and I'm looking forward to falling asleep tonight to some favorites of mine, and hopefully not jarring my wife into a bad mood when my personal idea of "wakeup" music fades in.

Playlist Alarm Clock is $1.99US in the App Store. However, Chilli X is offering TUAW readers a chance at one of 10 free copies. All you have to do is submit (in the comments) your ideal playlists, one for falling asleep, and one for waking up. Be creative, be funny, be brilliant ... Chilli X will choose their favorites winners will be randomly selected next Thursday and promo codes will be sent to the winners.

Here are the rules and a link to the legal statement:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment listing your choices for sleep and wake playlists.
• The comment must be left before Wednesday, July 22, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Ten winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: Promo code for one copy of Playlist Alarm Clock (US$1.99 value)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Good luck!

Want to make an iTunes playlist that will fill your iPod, without making one that's too big to fit? With an iTunes Smart Playlist you can do this and much more. In this Mac 101 tip I'll show you how.

Start by making a new Smart Playlist by selecting File > New Smart Playlist (or hold down the option key and click the gear that appears in the bottom left hand corner). You can select what you want from the drop-down menus in the middle section. For instance, I chose "Genre ... is ... Rock," but you can choose any of the options you want. Check the box next to "Limit ..." and type in how much storage your iPod or iPhone has, then select "GB" or "MB" from the next drop-down menu for Gigabytes and Megabytes. You also should make sure the "Live updating" checkbox is checked.

When you're done, click OK. You then need to make sure that you sync this and only this playlist to your iPod by going to your iPod (under devices) > Music, and select "Sync Music," and "Selected Playlists." Then put a check mark beside the playlist you just created. Re-sync, and you're done!


Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Mac 101 section today.

Christopher Breen knows a thing or two about iPods, iTunes and the Apple digital media ecosystem. We asked him about the limits of the newly-enabled Apple TV purchases, HD content and the fragile-yet-sexy Macbook Air.

Also available on: YouTube, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Blip.tv and Crackle

Call me fickle, but sometimes I don't want to hear any of the music I've got on my iPhone. What should I do when I'm away from my computer, itching for new music? Create a browser-based playlist.

The Internet Archive is a tremendous source of streaming music files (among other things) that play just fine on the iPhone. Here's how to set things up.

1. Create a new bookmark folder in Mobile Safari. I named mine "Rock."
2. Navigate to the Internet Archive, and find some music you'd like to listen to (I chose Smashing Pumpkins)
3. The Flash player at the top of the page will not work, but scroll down to the botto and click either of the "Mp3" files
4. A new page will open to play the file
5. Click "Done" at the top of the page, then touch the menu bar
6. Add a bookmark to the file to the "Rock" folder

Done! Add as many links as you like, and you've got a web-based playlist of tunes that aren't hogging storage space.

One of the things that has been bugging me since updating to iTunes 7 is the inability to see all my content at once; podcasts, video, audio and PDFs-all of it. While I normally don't need to see all my content in a single view, certain tasks, such as when I'm trying to get a feel for how much media I have on my machine, can't be completed without this ability. Luckily for me, macosxhints has posted a stupidly-easy workaround for this conundrum by way of a custom smart playlist. All you have to do is create a smart playlist with the condition set to show all media greater than 0 megabytes, and sha-zam! You've got that olde-timey functionality alive and kickin'.

Every year the fine folks at Playlist compile the best 'Plays' of the year, and this year is no different. The Plays of 2006 give a nod to the new iPod nano as the best iPod, and list the best items in:

• Headphones and speakers
• Cases and car accessories
• Home Audio products

Head on over and see if you agree with the editors of Playlist.

The iLive ICR6806DT is a horribly named new iPod alarm clock/speaker system. It can be set to wake you up using the music on your iPod, or via a more pedestrian alarm like the built in radio. As you can see it also includes a remote so you can pump up the jams from across the room (if that room is located somewhere in the late 90's that is; I'm so out of touch with the kids).

$99.99 gets you an ICR6806DT in your choice of black or white, that is compatible with all models of iPod (including the shuffle).

[via Playlist]

While browsing Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes and Smart Playlists.com last night for some ideas on how to make iTunes do my bidding, it dawned on me that these handy tools of automated music wrangling might make for a great Ask TUAW discussion. After all: who doesn't love music, and who doesn't love sharing their tips for better working (or music listening) bliss?

So what say you, TUAW readers? Do you have a smart playlist and a killer rating system for the perfect party soundtrack? Or perhaps a smart playlist that helps you keep track of which music you need to burn and back up? Feel free to lay it on us and share your smart playlist ninja skills with the rest of the class.

iPod.iTunes offers 8 different ways of synchronizing your iTunes library and playlists between both devices, giving you powerful control over what files are moved where and how. All formats are supported, including MP3, AAC, protected AAC (iTMS purchases), Audible books, and video files. PC-formatted iPods are compatible, and all metadata such as your song ratings, play count and album art are preserved in the transfer. This is a great utility for anyone in need of an easy method to clone an iPod, keep iTunes libraries on different Macs in sync or simply back up your iPod's library if it's the only place you keep all your media (Apple sadly doesn't provide a way of doing this).

Check out the full list of features of everything iPod.iTunes is capable of. Another handy trick this app performs is that it can live and run directly from your iPod, in which case your registration ($35 USD) travels with you. A demo is available from crispSofties.

C.K. thought we had posted on this already, but neither of us could find the post so, here goes: DownloadSquad picked up on a quiet new feature in iTunes 6.0.2: sharing video (along with audio) on a local network. Fortunately, it sounds like you don't have to do anything aside from enabling sharing in your preferences.

DLS also picked up on an odd quirk: videos purchased in 6.0.1 can't be played on 6.0.2 machines, which is surprising to me because I thought DRM'd content couldn't be played through sharing on other machines no matter what. Either way this is a great new feature, and the original digg post DLS found this at brings up all the media center and video-enabled AirPort Express rumors, which I'll just let y'all tackle in the comments.