iTunes Made Easy

In this installment, I answer a number of questions on various topics: Podcasts, smart playlists, streaming audio, and what happens to your iTunes Store content when youre gone.

Q: I would like to sync my entire iTunes Library to iTunes Match, but this doesnt seem to be possible at this time. Unless I am mistaken, iTunes Match only syncs music, not podcasts, videos or iTunes U content. Is this true?

Unfortunately, yes. iTunes Match only works with music, so your iTunes U content and videos wont match. As for podcasts, ideally, iTunes Match should allow you to sync not only your podcast subscriptions, but also which episodes you have listened to and where you left off if you havent finished listening to an episode. Apples own Podcasts app ( Macworld rated 3 out of 5 mice ), recently released for iOS, doesnt do any of this. There are a number of third-party apps that you can use to manage podcasts that you might find superior to iTunes and to Apples iOS apps.

In terms of video, most movies and TV shows youve purchased from the iTunes Store are available to watch from your other computers and iOS devices, regardless of whether youve subscribed to iTunes Match (part of Apples iTunes in the Cloud feature in supported countries). This doesnt apply to any videos youve made yourself or gotten from other sources, however.

Q: Id like to create a smart playlist that has a negative search condition: All my 5-star favorites where genre is not equal Holiday. This should be possible, right?.

Yes, and its pretty easy. You can use multiple conditions in a smart playlist, and you can use negatives as well. Create a new smart playlist (File -> New Smart Playlist), and use the following conditions: Rating Is and Genre Is Not Holiday. Make sure the pop-up menu at the top of your smart playlist is set to Match All Of The Following Rules.

Q: What happens to my iTunes account and all my iTunes content when I die? Can my daughters inherit all the songs and other content that Ive purchased? Theyd own all those items if they were physical products (CDs, DVDs), so shouldnt they be able to own the digital items as well?

This is a very good question, and I dont think Apple or any other company has prepared for this. If no one else has credentials for your account, I dont know if Apple would provide a way for your next of kin to access the account. The only solution I can think of is to make sure that your daughters have your iTunes Store username and password. With these, they will be able to continue to access all of the content that you purchased.

Unfortunately, you cant stream music from one computer playing iTunes to other computers. You can, however, use AirPlay in iTunes to stream music to different devices. You can stream to an Apple TV, to an AirPort Express to which you connect speakers, and to some third-party devices that are compatible with AirPlay.

To do so, click on the AirPlay icon at the bottom-right of the iTunes window. Choose Multiple Speakers from the bottom of the list. Check the box next to each AirPlay-compatible device you want to use, then close the window. When you play from iTunes on the computer where you have set up AirPlay, it will stream music to all of the AirPlay-compatible devices you have selected.

Q: I know there is plenty of free content on the iTunes Store. Is there anywhere I can find all this free content in one place?

Note that this list doesnt include all of the free apps on the iTunes Store. There are tens of thousands of them, so you certainly dont want to wade through a list that long. It looks like the free apps in this list are new, recently updated, or the ones that Apple wants to highlight.

Senior contributor Kirk McElhearn writes about Macs, music, and more on his blog Kirkville. Twitter: @mcelhearn Kirk is the author of Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ.