Cool iTunes stuff....

So, since iTunes 4 came out, I've been experimenting a little bit more with smart playlists and converting my lower-quality MP3s to higher-quality AAC files. I found out some cool things yesterday:

1. I created a smart playlist called iPod playlist. I told it to populate the playlist with songs that never had been played before, rated between 3-5 stars, with a maximum playlist size of 4675MB, chosen randomly. Why the size? Simple, for my iPod. That's about as many MP3s I can fit onto it. So, when I play my iPod, the play count for the song will be incremented on the iPod and automagically synched up with my iTunes playlist. Very cool. And because the smart playlist is dynamic, it'll constantly give me new stuff to listen to until I've listed to all of my music. When that happens, I'll configure the playlist to give me stuff I haven't heard in six months or so, keeping it still very fresh.

2. If you're re-ripping CDs to AAC format, replacing the MP3s you have, and the ID3 tags match up with what's already in your library, you'll be given the option to Replace Existing songs. Do it - it preserves the original creation date, play counts, ratings, and any album art you might've added to the file. The only thing it doesn't preserve is the genre, but that's easily fixed.

I'm VERY impressed at how iTunes manages the library. I hope all those Windows users get a good version of iTunes at the end of the year that does all of this stuff.