# Smart Shuffle — user reviews > 115 indexed App Store user reviews of Smart Shuffle by Spudfish Software, rated 3.80/5 from 36 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/smart-shuffle/id342320176/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/smart-shuffle/id342320176.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 15 · 4★ 8 · 3★ 6 · 2★ 5 · 1★ 2 ## Newest reviews (18 of 115) ### 4/5 — The best feature of iTunes is back!! *2026-05-30* I’m so glad to have this functionality back! I’m a long time Mac user, but new to iPhone and one of the things I was most looking forward to was album shuffle, so imagine my shock and dismay when I learned first that I had to pay Apple to have access to my library of CDs I’ve ripped over the years, and then that I wasn’t going to be able to listen to them on album shuffle. Smart Shuffle to the rescue! And after paying more than 10x the price of the app for a year of access to my iTunes library, this was worth every penny. I do have two issues, though: Choosing which album are going to shuffle is clunky and sometimes just gets lost and I have to do it again. There’s no way to save album playlists within this app. This would be especially useful because apple’s Music app doesn’t have any easy way to edit or generate an iTunes playlist, so I have to go back to the computer first. Love it, though! I’m about a hair’s width from a 5 star review on this app. ### 2/5 — No playlist available *2025-07-16* I have hundreds of albums in my library. So I want to select albums from my playlists. The developer told me to try Filter by Playlist. It is functioning but I want to clear all selected items. Because if I change a new playlist, I need to clear selected albums. Or I just do not know another function in the app? **Developer response:** Have you tried to Filter by Playlist in the Album Selection screen? Unselect all choices (tap the "X" icon in the lower right), then tap the Filter icon in the lower left. Select "Filter by Playlist", then you can select a playlist and then all or a portion of the albums from each playlist you filter by. If this doesn't work for you, please contact us at smart_shuffle_support@spudfish.com and we can try to diagnose the problem so we can fix it. And to remove all the currently selected albums and filters, tap the Filter icon, then scroll to the bottom of the selection list and tap the red "Clear Filters and Selections (Start Over)". ### 4/5 — CarPlay? *2025-02-27* Love the app for the Album Shuffle! But will you add CarPlay support at any point? Just to make shuffling albums easier when driving? **Developer response:** Smart Shuffle 4.0 has CarPlay support! Give it a try! ### 2/5 — Needs improvement *2023-12-20* No dark theme no select all albums text isn’t optimized base on your iPhone font size is what I’ll like to see fix if fix I’ll change my star rating and I’m on iOS 16.7.3 iPhone 8 Plus please fix above issues thank you ### 4/5 — Repeat play *2023-11-27* When all songs in the list are played, it stops. I want to play a playlist on repeat. ### 4/5 — Seems to have broken in IOS 17 *2023-09-30* I love that I can shuffle my many albums - but it seems to have broken in the latest iOS update. Now, instead of playing my album selection, i get whatever was last on my iOS playlist. Sure hope this can be fixed. Thanks! ### 4/5 — Crashing Apple Music *2023-08-27* Hi, I love Smart Shuffle. Have had it for years and years now. Only recently has it started to crash Apple Music, rendering it unusual w. Came here hoping for an update, but I might try de-installing & re-installing it again. Hope it fixes the problem but wanted to draw attention to it, just in case. 4 stars overall!!!! **Developer response:** Thanks! We love feedback and adding features, so if you'd like something new from Smart Shuffle, just let us know! ### 3/5 — It gets lost! *2023-01-10* Since the release of IOS 16 it gets lost. It will stop and shuffle in the middle of an album that I know has all tracks in the music app. And if I’m in the album selection screen , many times it won’t change to the album I select. It will choose a different random album. This is especially true if I try to select from the top of the album list. ### 2/5 — Problems with playlists *2022-04-22* I used to absolutely love this app, even if the interface was clunky. But when I try to filter by playlists it now shows me a bunch of playlists I don’t use but doesn’t recognise ones I’ve recently added to Apple Music. Such a shame because that basically renders this app unusable for me. ### 3/5 — Good features but is a battery hog *2020-08-17, version 3.8* Love all the features but uses lots of battery in the background even when not playing music. Looking for a battery friendly alternative. ### 4/5 — Just what I needed *2020-07-10* I use this app to allow me to shuffle by Album. However, another nice feature is the ability to remember where it last played, even after a full battery charge. My iPod touch is of the last generation and won’t do the latest Apple Music updates that remember playback but instead erases my whole shuffle if I pause too long or charge battery to full power. What I would like in this app is the ability to also shuffle by song...thereby allowing me to fully replace Apple Music/iTunes altogether. Any chance of that? That would convince me to give this app 5 stars. ### 2/5 — Not Shuffling by Album *2019-12-20* App used to work alright, primary gripe was you can’t look up a song and start from there, you have to know what album it’s on, and you have to find the album in the shuffled view - takes forever when you have 100s of albums and/or improperly named albums. Now however it’s not even shuffling by album, the ONE thing this app is supposed to do. Even when not connected to my car, the app periodically just reverts to normal shuffle and the only way I can discern to get it to work again is to reshuffle. **Developer response:** Sorry you're having trouble. First off, you can select an album to start from by going to the selection screen (where all albums are sorted and thus easy to find) and doing a long touch on the desired album. After a second, the checkmark will be replaced by a "waypoint" icon, and if you then shuffle your selections, the selected album will play first, followed by a randomized selection of the remaining albums. The problem with reverting to normal shuffle is likely due to connecting your phone to a car using the USB port. When that happens, the car tends to "take over" the album queue. The reason this might be happening more often is due to some battery-saving measures we've taken recently. Unfortunately, this can also cause the operating system to force Smart Shuffle to "let go" of the album queue more often than it used to, especially with large collections or devices without a lot of free memory. One thing to try is to run Smart Shuffle before starting the music playing (either through the device's control panel or by connecting it to your car). That way, Smart Shuffle reasserts control over the playback queue. If this doesn't work for you, please contact us at smart_shuffle_support@spudfish.com and we'll work with you to figure out what's going on and fix it. Thanks, and Happy Shuffling! ### 4/5 — Now more optimised for large collections *2018-12-03* I got this app ages ago but it was unusable, seeming to freeze for ages shuffling my 3000 album collection. Deleted after no response from developer. But I noticed it was updated recently and mentioned fixing performance issues and I’m pleased to find that the app is now usable! Feature request: naming and switching of filters so I can shuffle classical one day, pop the next. **Developer response:** Glad to hear it is working for you, and sorry you never received any response from us. We reply to every request we get from our website contact form or directly at smart_shuffle_support@spudfish.com, so perhaps our replies were filtered out of your email server? Anyway, rest assured we got the feedback about large collections and worked to address it. Seems like we might have gotten it right. Also, better filtering (with saving lists and filters) is on our big to-do list. That'll be a major upgrade, but it is on our radar. ### 4/5 — Best app available *2018-11-23, version 3.7.1* Great app! Keep it up! ### 4/5 — Pretty great! But is missing one key thing *2018-08-18* This is a great app for people who enjoy listening to full albums! It’s just missing one feature I think would be key: filter by “Album has more than X tracks” to make it easier to ignore singles and incomplete albums. Thanks! **Developer response:** That's a great idea! We can totally do that. Look for it in an upcoming release! ### 3/5 — Nice app when it works *2018-08-16* When I initially purchased this app, it worked fine. Each time I hopped in the car the album I’d been listening to would resume where it left off. Occasionally, if I’d been away from the car for a while, using other apps, it would “forget” the playlist in progress, and the iPhone music player would revert to the first track in my library by alphabetical order. Upon opening Smart Shuffle a prompt (from my iPhone I believe) would let me play from the last remembered song, which usually wasn’t exactly where I left off, but close enough. The problem is that it gradually got to the point that Smart Shuffle would rarely resume a playlist when I started the car, and could never seem to successfully restore a playlist, instead just reshuffling. I have over 500 albums on my phone, and would like to stick with a playlist that allows me to hear many different things without repeats. Constantly stopping and starting over is a deal breaker. I’ve recently added a different app that performs the same function and doesn’t seem to have any such issues. Unfortunate because I prefer the look of the Smart Shuffle interface, especially the screen that allows you to swipe through albums horizontally. **Developer response:** Sorry you're having trouble! Car audio interfaces are all different, and even behave differently with new iOS releases. Nevertheless, we'll take a look at the recovery logic of Smart Shuffle and see if we can tweak it to make it work better for you. If you'd like some personalized support, please email us at smart_shuffle_support@spudfish.com and we can ask some questions about your setup to help us target and find the issue. ### 2/5 — Still no random playlist feature *2018-08-09, version 3.6.6* Why still mo ability to select a playlist, play songs randomly assigning playcount of 1 to each before repeating any song or any album, then start over with playcount of 2, etc.? ### 5/5 — Great App *2018-04-01* This is a cracking wee app. If you like to listen to full albums rather than randomised songs then this is the app for you. This is about the only way you can play your albums in a random order as apple doesn't give you the ability to do so. **Developer response:** "Cracking Wee App" is our most favorite description of Smart Shuffle ever. Thanks for the kind words! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — cannot work *2024-08-05* When I tap PLAY button, the music stops playing immediately. **Developer response:** This bug should be fixed in the latest version of Smart Shuffle. Please contact us if you're still having issues. ### 1/5 — Last iOS update (12.2) *2019-03-28, version 3.7.2* Why is it Apple breaks you app every time they do an iOS (12.2) update? About every 5 albums or so get the Playing a Different List overlay message...IT IS ANNOYING. ### 1/5 — Add from Playlist broken *2015-05-02, version 2.6* The "add from playlist" function was completely non-functional and shuffling by playlist is the only reason I wanted an app like this. Would definitely try again if they released a new version that fixed this bug. For reference, I'm on iOS 8.3 ### 1/5 — Still broken in iOS 8 *2015-04-02, version 2.6* This is one of my favorite and most frequently used apps—or it was until I updated to iOS 8. I'm using an iPhone 4s and the app never gave me any problems prior to updating to iOS 8, but now it crashes within a second or two of opening it and never makes it past the first screen. I'd really love to see it fixed to work with iOS 8 as there's no other app out there that manages album shuffle as well as this one or allows album shuffle by playlist. ### 1/5 — Currently broke *2015-01-12, version 2.6* I love this app and use it all the time while driving. Now it will not load with most current ios8. I'm using a iPhone 4s the function is intermittent, generally I'm getting a messed up load screen without the usual loading albums message then it bails out to main screen. The skip buttons are also blank ### 1/5 — Simply does not work! *2014-09-07, version 2.5.3* Nothing happen whatever button I click ### 1/5 — Doesn't shuffle ALL albums... *2014-06-10, version 2.5.3* When I reload my iPod Touch with albums, I go the the Smart Shuffle screen to view my albums, and I make sure I click on the "Select All" option so it plays all the albums I loaded, then click "Shuffle". Well, it seems to want to play some albums 2-3 times, others 1-2 times and a WHOLE lot don't get played at all. This really needs a "play every album once then reshuffle" option. ### 1/5 — Crap App *2014-06-06, version 2.5.3* 1-I find it odd that the app does not ask for access to my music it just automatically goes there 2-Will not work while docked. Every time I stop the music And either: -turn off the iPod -remove the cord -turnoff my stereo or my truck it either : -skips three or four songs and then starts playing again. -or, causes the iPod to start playing. Resulting in me They just shut down the app every time I pull my truck over, Which in turn makes me listen to the first alphabetical album every freaking time I start this app -it only works good while you continually have it on -as soon as you turn off the iPod you have to go back to that first album every time. - which wouldn't be bad but App always picks the same five albums repeatedly to play out of 279 albums on my iPod ### 1/5 — Bad implementation *2012-12-31, version 2.5.1* I found this application lacking in several regards. The loading time is long and before you can press play, it may take about 10 seconds (on a iPhone 4). While multi-tasking with another sound application, the play/pause button would get jammed. The album information and tracklist is also missing. ### 1/5 — Keeps crashing *2012-09-04* Love the idea of this app, but it just doesn't work. Keeps wanting to rebuild my library, as if it can't cope with the number of albums. Please fix, as would love this to work... ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — THE BEST!! *2026-02-01* I’ve been using this app for at least 10 years!!! I love it, I just don’t understand why Apple did away with album shuffle selection! Smart Shuffle has helped me to discover new albums in my library! I hope this app lives FOREVER!!! Thank you for the recent app update!!! ### 5/5 — Miss cassette tapes? *2025-11-07* Love the app! I've been using it to simulate the experience of listening to random album sides, as I used to do on cassette in the car. I do this by first assigning the albums a "disc 1" and "disc 2" portion, to correspond to album sides A and B. So, the app’s ability to shuffle by "disc" is wonderful! I also love the ability to include some silence between albums, so I can hear that it is moving on to the next album. However what would be really cool is if it could play a tape-changing sound (or some kind of sound like a physical CD changer would make). Maybe you could add that? Thanks for making this ### 5/5 — Terrific!! *2024-11-27* Congratulations on developing a wonderful app for us frustrated Apple Music album-lovers! 😃 Just a minor issue: when I switch from Smart Shuffle to Apple Music, play a song that's not part of current the album in SS, then switch back, SS gets a bit grumpy when I try to resume the album it was playing. I'm using an iPhone Xs with iOS 17.6.1. ### 5/5 — Thanks for updating *2024-01-04* Thanks for updating to realize my hope promptly, that is, adding the index to filter by artist window. I will enjoy your product. Thanks a lot for updating to make this app best for me to play music. I have a long artists list containing about 218 names. ### 5/5 — Needs improvement *2023-12-26* Okay for 0.99 cents or a 1.09 this is a cool app definitely recommend if you want to shuffle your albums from your music library as well have all your albums play from beginning to end ### 5/5 — Practically Perfect in Every Way *2023-07-04* Shuffle your albums like the good old days. The last update a few months ago appears to have squashed the few minor bugs the app had. For those of you that like listening to whole albums, this app is perfect. ### 5/5 — Great! *2021-08-26, version 3.12* Provides what is sadly missing from the Music app! ### 5/5 — Finally! *2020-06-03* All I want to do is put a bunch of my favourite albums in a playlist and be able play them in full, randomly. I don’t understand why Apple took album shuffling out of their native player, or why all of the other apps that said they did this didn’t work properly, but this app is intuitive and simplistic and just heckin works. I choose which albums I want to play, from a list I can filter and sort to a substantially precise degree, and it plays them randomly. I can even pick which album to start from. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ ### 5/5 — Excellent app *2019-06-19* Does a perfect job of addressing the inexplicable gap in apples bog standard music app. I also like the ability to skip to next album, and the album introductions. In this vein, possibly having track introductions may be a possible additional feature. Thanks chaps! ### 5/5 — Great App *2018-08-29* I bought this years ago, thought it was ok, but stopped using it. I recently reinstalled the app after what must have been tons of updates. It is totally different, and is now hands down my favorite music app. The interface is way better than the Apple Music app. I mainly listen to classical music and love being able to skip by album. **Developer response:** Thanks for returning to the fold! Please let us know if there are any additional features that you'd like to see. You can contact us at our website or at smart_shuffle_support@spudfish.com. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-04.*