I have to admit that they’ve really regressed in the selection of songs for the On-The-Go playlist. Normal iPods can add any song on the go to a special playlist simply by highlighting the song and holding down on the center button until it flashes. Simple.
On an iPhone/iPod Touch, however, to add a song to this playlist is an enormously more difficult task. Once in the iPod section, you have to go to the Playlists section (which, in my case, is hidden under the “More…” button), then choose “On The Go.” This pops up an “Add Songs to the On-The-Go Playlist” menu (you many have to hit Edit if you already have songs there, then tap the plus), which, if you’re like me and have quite a bit of music on your device, is quite a list to flick through. The helpful Rolodex-esque sidebar selector from the normal selection menus is missing, causing you to need to be extremely diligent, especially when you song starts with something far down the list, such as my fav Wilco song, Theologians. Somewhere in the process, I always manage to accidentally switch to the video or podcast menus, yet still be in On-The-Go selection mode, and somehow still not realise it, forcing me to start over again. Once you finally get to the song you want, tap the plus button, and it is added, strangely becoming greyed out, so you cannot add it again (my old skool trick of stacking the deck with a song I’ll want to hear more often). And strangely, sometimes going back to add more lands you in a completely different category (like albums, etc).
I can understand why the functionality from prior iPods hasn’t been carried forward (iPhone taps on buttons are only registered upon finger-up), but why not take a page from other mobileOSX apps and add a small icon to the top menubar to turn on On-The-Go selection mode in the regular menus?
And don’t get me started on the lack of copy/paste and MMS support, let alone the stability of mobileSafari…
