While the iTunes Genius feature allows you to create playlists and discover new music in iTunes, you can also use Genius on your iPhone,iPod touch, or iPad to create playlists right on your mobile device.
Though you can't use Genius to discover new music on the iPhone (yet – I wouldn't be surprised if that feature crops up someday), you can tap into its smarts to make great-sounding playlists. Here's how:
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: 1 minute
Here's How:
- Begin by tapping on the iPod/Music app on your iPhone/iPod touch home screen. (Alternatively, you can build a Genius playlist around the song you're currently playing by tapping the screen and then tapping the Genius icon in the top middle of the screen.)
- In the iPod/Music app, tap the Playlists icon at bottom left (it may be in a different place if you moved your icons around. If so, find the playlists button where you put it).
- The first option in Playlists is Genius (it has the Genius icon next to it). Tap it.
- To create a playlist, Genius needs you to select a song to build the playlist around. Browse the music on your device and select a song by tapping it.
- This creates a Genius playlists of 25 songs based on that song (unlike on the desktop, there's no way to make a Genius playlist more than 25 songs long on the iPhone).
- Once the playlist is created, it begins playing. To view all the songs in the playlist, tap the back arrow in the top left corner. This shows you the full playlist. Tap Refresh to get a new set of songs based on the first one.
- If you love the playlist, tap Save in the top right. The Genius playlist will be saved in your playlists screen with the name of the song you built the playlist around and the Genius icon next to it. You can edit the name of playlist once you've synced the playlist to iTunes, if you want.
- Once the playlist is saved, you can tap the Edit button in the top right to refresh the playlist or tap Delete to delete it from the iPhone/iPod touch.
