iPhone 14 Pro Max Apple Music playlists

[kurtfoster]

I have been looking for a logical answer for this decision since 20 years ago when Apple released a version of their music app that insisted on dumping my playlists that start with numbers at the bottom. I have gone through AppleCare, I have emailed everyone at Apple and no one thinks it’s an issue and no one can give me a reason why this is. No one knows or cares. Let me explain. I create playlists with genres and my genres are the year that the songs came out. For instance, I have a playlist that says 1920s to 1930s. Before Apple changed the Music app, these playlists would show up above Alpha numerical characters, as it is supposed to be. Every list I’ve ever looked at in my life has numbers at the top and letters below. The only workaround I have found is to add the letter a before the playlist, thus forcing it to load where it’s supposed to. I googled this question, and I only come up with my initial post many years ago on Apple‘s website with no replies and no resolve. Is there anybody on this form that can enlighten me why it’s so difficult to make this work the way it’s supposed to work or why Apple did this? I am attaching a screenshot, in case it helps. Thank you.

 

[mjschabow]

I guess I don’t really mind it being that way, since I have a ton of decade playlists that I’d rather not take up my first 10 or so playlists when scrolling.

 

[StudioMacs]

I have been looking for a logical answer for this decision since 20 years ago [snip] I have emailed everyone at Apple and no one thinks it’s an issue [snip] The only workaround I have found is to add the letter a before the playlist, thus forcing it to load where it’s supposed to. I googled this question, and I only come up with my initial post many years ago on Apple‘s website with no replies and no resolve.

This has been going on for 20 years, you have a workaround, and no one else seems to mind what has become the expected behavior for two decades.

Not everything works the way we want it to, so sometimes we have to adjust.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Make a playlist folder called Decades (or whatever you want to call it) and put all of the "years" playlists inside of it. Here's a picture of my own similar playlists gathered in 10-year spans...

In Apple Music, my custom folders like this one appear at the top of "Playlists" but take up only a single line item entry unless I open it to show the list of the playlists in that folder. And synching individual year entries to iDevices is as easy as if they are NOT in a folder.

OPs 20 year spans would work just as well- no (first) letter required. For example, add the dash and then 1960's after 1950's in the screenshot and that would match OPs "1950s to 1960s" grouping is his picture.

Why Apple sorts numbers below letters is something only Apple knows. Perhaps they are just following the order of how the term alphanumeric is presented... which is never numericalpha? Whatever the reason, the above workaround will be the "just works" (closest) way to get what you want, which is getting your year name playlists stacked atop the other playlists that start with alphabetical characters.

 

[kurtfoster]

Make a playlist folder called Decades (or whatever you want to call it) and put all of the "years" playlists inside of it. Here's a picture of my own similar playlists gathered in 10-year spans...

View attachment 2291820​

In Apple Music, my custom folders like this one appear at the top of "Playlists" but take up only a single line item entry unless I open it to show the list of the playlists in that folder. And synching individual year entries to iDevices is as easy as if they are NOT in a folder.

OPs 20 year spans would work just as well- no (first) letter required. For example, add the dash and then 1960's after 1950's in the screenshot and that would match OPs "1950s to 1960s" grouping is his picture.

Why Apple sorts numbers below letters is something only Apple knows. Perhaps they are just following the order of how the term alphanumeric is presented... which is never numericalpha? Whatever the reason, the above workaround will be the "just works" (closest) way to get what you want, which is getting your year name playlists stacked atop the other playlists that start with alphabetical characters.

Thank you for that! I will try it.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

It will definitely work... and closest thing to what you want from Apple Music without Apple making programming changes to sort playlists as you want them.