Q: Are folders for playlists now supported on the new iPod models?
– Dan
A: The good news is that Apple has brought the playlist folders feature first introduced in iTunes 7 last year to the iPod nano and iPod classic at least. As the iPod touch has not yet been released, it’s impossible to know for certain whether it will also be supported on this device, but we’re certainly hoping so.
This was first hinted at in the changes to playlist synchronization in iTunes 7.4, as we outlined in our Secrets & Features of iTunes 7.4 article. Music synchronization settings within iTunes now provide selection of playlists based on a folder organization, rather than the “flat list” that appeared in previous versions of iTunes.
In addition to this, users who have organized their playlists into folders within iTunes will now see these folders represented under “Playlists” in the new iPod interface. Basically, this has been organized into another level of menus, so instead of seeing all of your playlists appear directly under the “Playlists” menu, you will instead see a list of your playlist folders. Selecting a playlist folder will then show the playlists contained within that particular folder. As an added bonus, you can also play all tracks from all playlists contained within a folder simply by pressing the “Play” button with the folder highlighted (in the same way that the iPod has always worked for any other content-baesd menu item).
Note that this extra folder listing under playlists will naturally only appear for those users who actually have folders, and have synced more than one folder to the iPod. As with most other content, the iPod doesn’t was your time displaying a menu when there are only one or zero possible options.
Another caveat is that this does not appear to yet be supported when using manual management. When dragging a folder to the iPod in manual mode, the folder will simply become a playlist on the iPod, aggregating all of the content from all contained playlists into a single playlist with the name of the original source folder.
