Get in Tune(s): Audio on Your iPad mini - iPad Mini - page 183

Although you can't create Smart Playlists on your iPad mini, they totally rock.
What is a Smart Playlist? Glad you asked. A Smart Playlist is a special playlist that selects
tracks based on criteria you specify, such as Artist Name, Date Added, Rating, Genre, Year,
and many others. Fire up iTunes on your computer and choose File ⇒ New Smart Playlist to
get started.
And that's all there is to selecting, creating, and playing songs in a playlist.
It doesn't take a Genius
Genius selects songs from your music library that, at least in Apple's not-so-humble opinion, go
great together. To use it, either tap the Genius tab at the bottom of the screen or tap the Create button
and choose Genius Playlist. What happens next depends on which way you started.
If you tapped the Genius tab at the bottom of the screen, your iPad will display a collection of pre-
made Genius mixes with names like Hip Hop, Classic Rock, New Wave, Punk, and so on, which are
based on the songs in your library. Tap one and your iPad selects 25 songs of that type that it thinks
will go well together.
If you tap the Create button on the main screen (refer to Figure 7-1 ) and choose Genius Playlist,
your iPad selects 25 songs it thinks will go well with the current song. If no song is currently play-
ing when you choose Genius Playlist, an alphabetical list of songs appears and you'll need to select a
song for the Genius playlist to be based upon.
The less popular the song, artist, or genre, the more likely Genius will choke on it.
When that happens, you see an alert that asks you to try again because this song doesn't have
enough related songs to create a Genius playlist.
When you create a Genius playlist, you find it at the top of your Playlists list; tap it and you see the
25 songs that Genius selected. You see three new buttons near the top of the screen:
New: Select a different song to use as the basis for a Genius playlist.
Refresh: See a list of 25 songs that “go great with” the song you're listening to (or the song
you selected). If you don't like the selection, tap Refresh again and different tracks will ap-
pear. Keep tapping until you're satisfied with the Genius's choices.
Save: Save this Genius playlist so that you can listen to it whenever you like.