Dear Lazyweb,

I listen to podcasts.  I like to listen to them in the order in which they are released. I am able to accomplish this goal on iTunes, but not on my iPod or iPhone.  On those devices the sorting order is reversed. See the yellow area.



How do I invert that order so I can listen to the podcasts in the correct order?  And while driving, meaning without having to touch the device.

Some people on the intertubes suggest that you set up a smart playlist, set the sort order in the iTunes UI, and then select the "copy to play order" of that smartlist.  But that's even worse:



All the podcasts are sorted together, by release date (and mis-labeled as "Songs"). The CNet entries are no longer grouped together.  I cannot see which items I've already listened to, can't see the release date, and so on.

This solution is completely unacceptable.

So, dear friends, how do I listen to all my podcasts, grouped by show, in the release order, on my iPhone?  Where is the UI that magically does what I want that I've simply been too blind to see?

From http://www.macworld.com/article/134525/2008/07/iphonebackingup.html

This is the cause of my syncing angst—that little progress bar—which is part of a fun game I like to call the “iPhone Backup Lottery,” or IBL for short. How do you play the IBL? It’s simple—just plug in your iPhone (or iPod touch, I imagine), and then wait. If you’ve won the IBL, the backing-up progress bar will rapidly fill from left to right, followed by the start of the usual iPhone syncing process.

If, as is usually the case with lotteries, you’ve lost the IBL, then the progress bar moves more slowly than does the release cycle for major versions of Microsoft Windows. In my case, my current personal record as an IBL loser is 74 minutes from the time I docked the iPhone until the backup completed. As it turns out, though, I’m far from a record-setter. My Macworld colleague Dan Frakes reports that he’s had a backup take more than two hours!

My iPhone takes a very long time (though less than 20 minutes worst case) to sync each time I sync. Now there's a name for this problem.  At least I am not alone.