General problems with lyrics, syncing and iTunes (Match)

UPDATE (iOS 8 / iTunes 12):
Today I purchased some songs on the iPhone and later added the lyrics in iTunes - but the lyrics did not show up on the iPhone after syncing back to it -- this is the known problem.
But then I simply deleted the songs on the iPhone and then synced again from iTunes - after the second sync the lyrics were on the iPhone. Maybe this is the way to solve this problem.
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With iCloud, iTunes Match and downloads directly to the iPhone it really get's complicated. You are no longer master of your own songs. When you add lyrics in iTunes on the mac and sync back to the iPhone, the lyrics don't show up! In other cases the old lyrics before the change show up!?

It is a problem with iOS 5. All this iCloud and Match stuff is even confusing Apple, it seems.

Deleting the song on the iPhone and then sync it back from the computer does not help.
What you have to do:

1. Copy the song from iTunes to your desktop (or any other folder) -- the lyrics are contained within this file
2. Delete the song in iTunes (with "move to trash")
3. Delete the song on the device (in the built-in music app, with a swipe gesture)
4. Sync from computer to device by cable
5. Add the song back to iTunes
6. Sync again

--- Now the song will display the lyrics both in the music app and in SmartPlaylist (in SmartPlaylist you must empty the cache with the new ⌘-command "Empty cache after sync" or do a complete restart)

Like that you will loose the Rating, Play Count and Skip Count and get a new Date Added. It is a pain.

Maybe it's better to download songs from Amazon, after all. Then you don't have those troubles.

Search in lyrics, read lyrics

Finally. I have found a way to search for songs by looking for search patterns in their lyrics!
Examples:
Lyrics contain "slavery AND cruel"
Lyrics like "* neighb*r *"

As usual, you can combine this with any other rule in SmartPlaylist.
And as usual, you can copy from the lyrics to paste into mails, messages or notes.

This works only for songs actually stored on the device (it doesn't work for songs in the cloud of iTunes Match). For certain protected songs (DRM) it might also not work.
The lyrics must be stored inside the song (you can do that in iTunes) --- SmartPlaylist will not look up lyrics for you in the internet.

iTunes Match

SmartPlaylist relies completely on the MediaLibrary present on the device and has not been adapted to iTunes Match, if this is possible at all. Other developers are also struggling with this.

Accessing a song up in the cloud (iTunes Match) seems to change something in the MediaLibrary. Unfortunately I cannot distinguish between these Match-changes and real library changes after synching. Maybe I just have to ignore changes and people have to restart SmartPlaylist after synching, like before. Alas, Apple does not make it easy.

Experiment: Price drop January/February

As an experiment I dropped the price of SmartPlaylist to just 1$ to see how this affects sales. I will review the price at the end of February.

Search and sort by Year

In v5.2 of SmartPlaylist you will be able to search and sort by Year.
As this function is not provided by Apple, but is only possible with an "nonofficial" workaround, this feature might be rejected by Apple. We will see.