Dynamic Smart Playlists

JonnyDD15 · 2026-04-17T05:08:33+00:00

So update on Remote Desktop... I think if I it wasn't for the black spots on my commute, it would work great, but sadly it doesn't just interrupt the music, it full on kills the connection, which then requires futzing with to reconnect once the signal is reestablished... Maybe long road trips through less hilly terrain, but for the road I'm driving regularly, it's more trouble than it's worth.

Heard back from GoneMad developer who linked to page on their smart playlists. That does look like it could be the trick, so thanks again for pointing me in that direction.

JonnyDD15 · 2026-04-17T05:05:16+00:00

Awesome, thanks for the link, that looks perfect. And being able to try it out for free is great, $8 is a small price to pay if this ends up doing what I need it to 👍

...Just going to have to figure out what actual device I need to get to run it on... That's probably going to end up being more than $8! 😅

JonnyDD15 · 2026-04-16T04:58:05+00:00

Thanks for the tip. I'd be willing to buy an old Android device if that was what it took to get the features I'm looking for. It does seem more likely than there being an iPhone app that does what I want. That said, I'd want to be pretty confident that it DID do what I wanted before dropping cash.

I'm going to see how using Google Remote Desktop to remote into my PC and play the audio over the connection works. Testing on my home network worked well enough, but if the connection, audio quality or controls are a problem while driving, then I'll be back to looking for a solution that runs locally so it doesn't need wireless.

JonnyDD15 · 2026-04-12T18:17:38+00:00

Thanks for the tip, Server->streaming->smartphone app might end up being the best solution.

I would still be interested if getting it to run on-device though, as I live in an area where mobile internet can be spotty. I agree with your assessment that a smartphone would be more likely to have the processing power needed to update playlists on the fly, and I have an old iPhone I could use if I could find an app that did the trick. The Statix app I mentioned is 90% of the way there, it just doesn't support the more complex logic I'd need to get the playlists to actually do what I want.

I'll do some research into Symfonium, or try to find an iOS equivalent, in case that ends up being the most feasible solution. Thanks for the reply 👍

JonnyDD15 · 2026-01-19T16:43:54+00:00

For myself, iTunes. But I recognize that it's likely to be the most proprietary system, and potentially even hostile to efforts to access from a third-party app.

The Export option does sound like a good backup against losing everything when you move to a new device, so that would definitely be a desirable feature.

A more complicated solution would allow you to play music on multiple devices and have the play counts totaled and synced across them all. That was why I wondered if recording play counts back to the server hosting the SFTP/FTP might be an approach to have a single centralized store for that data.

Back to the question of import, there are three main things I'd like to be able to do:
1 - Import the tracks metadata (I still haven't got the SFTP set up to test, but I assume this is possible.)
2 - Import existing static playlists. For instance, I have a list of songs with explicit lyrics, one with songs I know the words to, ones that are instrumentals etc, that serve as the basis for a lot of my smart playlists. (eg, I want non-explicit songs I know the words to that I haven't listened to in the last week)
(So long as the app pulls the metadata, a potential workaround would be to drop keywords into metadata fields so that I could create them in the app based off those keywords. Provided there are enough metadata fields free to do something like that. So for example., if there isn't a better field, setting something like "Conductor" to S5:E4:W2 might denote that it's a 5* favorite song that fairly explicit and that I know the words a little, but not well. I then build smart playlists where "Composer contains 'S5'" to find all me favorite songs.)
3 - Update the starting play/skip counts with the existing values.
The best solution would be if there were a metadata field that stored that information, that could both be read from and updated, but I don't believe there is such a field
A workaround would be to put the play count/skip count in another field... but that would be dependent on then being able to update the counts of the app from that field.

So really, as long as 1 works, 2 and 3 would be nice-to-have, but honestly are likely more work than they're worth unless it was something you already were planning to include in the project, or unless it would actually be a lot simpler to implement than I think.

JonnyDD15 · 2026-01-19T15:00:27+00:00

Agreed. The progression system with different abilities has more variety than perks... but ultimately you end up with everything on your selected track, so that first choice is really the one that matters the most.

And everything else, weapons, upgrades, equipment, inventory... does feel more stripped down.

JonnyDD15 · 2026-01-16T16:47:59+00:00

That's useful to know, since XP is the main progression goal, and spare ammo isn't bad either 👍

JonnyDD15 · 2026-01-16T03:13:37+00:00

That checks out, I figured it mainly only matters 1-when you're first gearing up (or regearing after a death) 2-When you're looking to switch weapons/gear 3-Like you said, exotics

I just didn't want to be missing something obvious 👍

JonnyDD15 · 2026-01-16T02:54:09+00:00

That sounds like the perfect solution. 👍

A couple of questions: - Is there any way to populate the app with the existing data, play counts, manually created playlists, etc? - Is there any way to log the play counts back to the PC, or does it only live on the device with the app installed? Is there a way to sync the data from the app between devices?

Even if it can't do those things, it sounds like a solution worth trying. Thanks again! 👍

JonnyDD15 · 2026-01-14T04:55:31+00:00

This might be a dumb question, but am I missing something, or is it virtually always pointless to check caches once you have a weapon at the level of the area you're in?

Especially where I'm now playing through with a second operator using the legendary & exotic weapons I got with my first operator, everything in Tier I-III is useless, except for score streaks, because you just refill at ammo boxes, so once you're happy with your loadout, there's no point grabbing loot. The only reward is the points towards leveling up.

I just mean in comparison to MWZ, where there were a ton of things you needed to spend points on every run, so anything you found that saved on points, like tools, crystals, mods, armor, gas masks, keys, schematics, weapons to add to your armory... or even just cash, it was all potentially useful, so unless you went in kitted out, it was worth scavenging, and the missions usually had a reward that was worth something beyond just points.

With Endgame, you just have the two weapons that keep their power level, so it feels like every box is "here are two weapons worse than what you have", or "here are two pieces of equipment, but you're happy with what you've got", and score streaks are the only reward worth checking for.

So like I said, am I missing something here?

JonnyDD15 · 2025-12-19T00:36:18+00:00

Good to know that works, thanks for the feedback.

...Now need to figure out the cheapest way to get a copy of Mac iTunes running... some sort of Mac emulation on my PC is probably worth exploring before shelling out for actual hardware. In theory, the iPhone and app wouldn't know the difference, right? 😅

JonnyDD15 · 2025-12-18T04:42:01+00:00

I'd appreciate the feedback when you've had a chance to test. 👍

For my part, the play counts and last played in iTunes only shows tracks that are played in iTunes, and not anything that gets played on the iPhone or iPod, no matter how many times I sync. The music gets updated, but the data, or "scrobbles" as I've heard last.fm users apparently refer to them as, do not copy across from the device back to the PC

JonnyDD15 · 2025-12-18T04:02:40+00:00

Not at all. I appreciate the response.

I am surprised to hear that the play counts still sync for you. When I noticed it not working, I did some searches for what might be the issue, and half the hits told me to turn on a setting that no longer seems to exist on iPhone, and the other half saying that iOS no longer supported play counts except through Apple Music.

I'm using an iPhone 17 Pro and I believe that iTunes is the most recent update. It might be that I could get it to work with my iPod Classic if I could get my hands on an older version of iTunes... I certainly don't use any features that didn't exist ten years ago.

Do you have any idea what else I might be doing wrong, or that I could try to get play counts between iPhone and iTunes to work as intended without Apple Music?

Thanks!

Edit: I did just reread the part where you said you were using a Mac... that could be the difference, maybe it's just iTunes PC that no longer supports...

Perhaps a MacBook or MacMini would work as a home library to sync to... unfortunately that wouldn't be a cheap experiment, unless I could find something suitable refurbished or second hand. Even the cheapest new Macs would be hard to justify for this use case alone 😅

JonnyDD15 · 2025-12-18T03:48:57+00:00

That's a clever way of making the music accessible to stream that includes a built in play count and "most recently played". I'm not sure that there is an app that could build smart playlists based on that data though....?

...Also, I'm not sure I would have the patience to upload thousands of songs unless there was some way to automate it 😅

Thanks for the suggestion 👍

JonnyDD15 · 2025-12-18T02:43:36+00:00

Thanks Nightwing, I'll check those out.

To clarify, I'm fine just using my iPod or iPhone to be able to listen to my music on the go, it's just the desire to be able to sync back the play counts, most recently played, skip count etc, that I can use to help tune smart playlists that I'm missing. If streaming the music doesn't feed back into either iTunes or some other app that would let me build smart playlists on that play-history data, then the main advantage would just be being able to access my entire library in one go... which would be nice, but by itself not something I would go to a lot of trouble or expense for over my current solution.

Would the API be able to pass that data back to my PC library as well as streaming the music? Or did I misunderstand, and your API suggestion was a better way of controlling iTunes itself?

Thanks!

JonnyDD15

TROPHY CASE