The complaints vary. I’m still confused by this complaint by my friend David. He wants iTunes to recognize band names after he’s changed them. If a band [...]]]> There’s a lot of people who don’t seem to like the genius feature of iTunes. In fact, quite a few seem to hate it.

The complaints vary. I’m still confused by this complaint by my friend David. He wants iTunes to recognize band names after he’s changed them. If a band has a name, why should iTunes still recognize the band name after you’ve changed it?

Of course, there’s always things that can be improved. Here’s a few ideas that I’d like to see, in no particular order.

• Do not include songs that I’ve rated less than 3.

There’s a reason why a song in my library has a 2. Lets just assume I know that I don’t particularly like a song that I’ve given a 1 or 2. Or, make it an option. If it already is, then I’m a jackass and I can’t find it. Leave a comment letting me know where it is, if this is the case, and I’ll gladly choose it. Or, it could be solved by the next feature…..

• Let me pick which playlists genius selects from

Say I’ve got a playlist of “songs I never heard”, which might be 8 thousand songs. I’d like genius to pick songs similar to “Cyanide” off the Death Magnetic Metallica Album, but only ones I’ve never heard before. Why? To do it’s job and find my music I’ve got stashed away and have no clue what it is.

• Let me add songs to the playlists that I opt to save.

The current version of the genius playlists do not allow me to add songs that I feel are appropriate. That’s kind of a bummer, because if I click refresh, and then realize a great song was left off, I’m stuck. The only solution right now is to select all and create a new playlist from selection (shift apple n). Not terribly inconvenient, and I don’t even know how’d you deal with the UI mess of hitting refresh again and losing your customizations. Lose them completely probably.

• Not genius specific, but I’d like to see more flexible smart playlists.

I just want an SQL like syntax for building playlists with nested AND OR support. I’m pretty sure I’ll NEVER get this. However, it seems like it wouldn’t be too bad to write if there’s a decent lexer/parser out there for objective C. I haven’t explored that.

I’m aware I can create playlists based on other playlists. Unfortunately I’ve got about a dozen playlists laying around that I don’t even listen to. I know, put them in a folder. Yes, I’m nitpicking.