For the past 6 months we’ve been on a mission to let you experience Last.fm where you want, when you want. We realize that not everyone has a web browser plugged into their home stereo and very few of us want to take our laptops on the morning jog. We’ve worked with a great group of partners to bring Last.fm to the living room and the mobile phone.
Today we’d like to add another platform to the list: Android. Android is Google’s open source mobile operating system and it’s pushing the boundaries of what you can and should expect from your mobile phone.
Our new Android app is a fully featured Last.fm radio application that leverages the open nature of the Android OS. You’ll be able to stream your favorite Last.fm stations, view your friends’ profiles and watch out for up coming events.
One Android only feature we’re pretty excited about is… background streaming! This means you can keep listening while you browse the web, buy songs from Amazon or check out maps for an event that looks interesting. We’ve been playing with the prototypes for a while and can honestly say this is a killer feature.
Keeping with the open spirit of Android, we’re also working to make sure it’s easy to scrobble music you play in other applications. We’ve been talking to Google about scrobbling the built-in media player and will be exposing our service in a way that allows other applications to scrobble songs. This is a work in progress but something that’s unique to Android that we intend to fully embrace.
Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning the amazing development path this project has taken. First, the timeframe for rolling this out was super tight. We started work about a month ago and feel the end product shines. Kudos to the awesome client team for the rapid turnaround. Part of the secret to success was using our open source development community. We had been contacted by a couple of open source developers who wanted to bring Last.fm to Android. Instead of having multiple projects, we all decided to work together to create one official Last.fm application. So, special thanks to Lukasz Wisniewski and Casey Link for contributing their projects and time and helping make a really exciting application.
Stay tuned for more updates as we plan to launch some exciting new mobile features soon.
Download it now from the Android Market on your mobile.
Comments
Piers
23 January, 16:12
What’s the best thing to search for? I tried last.fm but it comes up with a load of wannabees.
mkuzmin
23 January, 16:15
does it have the same ridiculous country restrictions as iPhone version?
The Android Site
23 January, 16:27
Finally. Something I’ve been wanting for a while now. Thanks!
isaac bowen
23 January, 16:29
Oh lord yes. Thank you.
@Piers – once in the Market, open up Applications -> Multimedia and sort by date. It’s in there, guessing it just hasn’t been indexed or something equally temporary.
Brian
23 January, 16:45
What about Windows Mobile devices like the Mogul?
Laurie Denness
23 January, 16:51
@Brian: There is an unofficial client for Windows Mobile, called PocketScrobbler. More information available here
Derek
23 January, 16:55
This is amazing! Thank you so much for your great work.
Joe
23 January, 17:27
Is the app open source? where can the source be downloaded?
Dunl
23 January, 18:37
Searching the Android Market for “last.fm” finds me nothing; “lastfm” finds me “aLast.FM Player”, “LastFM Client”, and “LastFM: Android Edition” — but all appear to be unofficial?
Attila Györffy
23 January, 18:40
Finally. Good job, dudes. Looking forward to see it in action, live.
Mar
23 January, 18:55
i can’t find it in the market. does this app have the same regional restrictions like the iphone version?
Brad
23 January, 19:05
Why on earth does this application need access to my “Personal Information” like my contact list?
Thats a bit off-putting.
Jon Colverson
23 January, 19:09
I hope you don’t mind if I put a plug here for my app Scrobble Droid It scrobbles Android’s built-in “Music” app (naughtily using an undocumented interface), and also has an API that other apps can use for easy scrobbling.
It’s open source so you’re very welcome to use any of it for the official client (the architecture is a bit of a mess because it was my first Android app, but the part that interfaces with the “Music” app might be of interest).
Wouter
23 January, 19:21
I assume it is only USA and a few selected other countries again? :-(
Lallo
23 January, 20:01
I searched for it, but couldn’t find it. It’s under the featured apps.
swhite
23 January, 20:16
I couldn’t find it via search either, but going to Applications and then Multimedia, and sorting by date pulled it up — “Last.fm – Personal Radio”
Mar
23 January, 20:53
is it possible to enable it for all countries. i don’t live in the us or uk, but still want to see it on my g1. pleease :)
Max
23 January, 21:06
You guys are awesome.
gork
23 January, 21:30
searching for it is definitely broken. Installing it now! I love this!
Brad
23 January, 21:46
No feedback on why the Last.fm app needs access to our contact list?
I’ve been trying to legitimate reason, but so far can’t think of one.
Sam
23 January, 22:01
@brad – The app has an option to share the current song you’re listening to via with anyone you choose from your address book.
gaboo
23 January, 22:11
Can’t see it in the market. I have a developer G1 and I’m in France. Search gives me no result and going to multimedia app sorted by date neither…
It’s not the first app I can’t find, but as one cannot download the apk file elsewhere, I can’t install it :s
Looks really cool btw!
Brad
23 January, 22:13
Thanks Sam. I figured any sharing would be from from within last.fm itself; ie: notify a last.fm ‘friend’ of the song you’re listening to.
Busby SEO Test
23 January, 22:22
Thanks it’s nice informations for me
Jonty
23 January, 23:04
@Brad: The app does both, it can send sharing notifications to your last.fm contacts or send an email to a friend who isn’t on last.fm. Nothing to panic about!
jan
23 January, 23:05
@mkuzmin
This does have the ridiculous country restrictions once again. CBS must think Europe only exists of 3 or 4 countries…? It’s a very disappointing policy. Just another USA focused company in a global economy. It’s really crazy, because Imeem is succeeding in pan-European deals.
The Imeem-app for Android IS available in other countries where Lastfm isn’t…
@LastFM: please explain this. It is only a matter of 10 phonecalls and some faxes per country. Just Google who the rights organizations per country are. They all have policies in place for royalty’s for webradio. It can be done with 2 or 3 days work per country…
B
23 January, 23:07
It’s currently in the “Featured” list as “Last.fm – Personal Radio”, but seams to be missing via market place searching.
M
23 January, 23:32
Just got signed up to last.fm thanks to the app. Problem is, when listening in the car or the house, when it switches from Wi-Fi to 3G to Edge, it stops and makes you click around and re-load your channel to get it going again. How about less interruptions!
Mo
23 January, 23:42
This looks awesome, but I can’t find it :(
I’m using the Android Dev Phone 1, which is essentially the same as the G1 but unlocked and without branding. Is that what’s stopping me from finding it??
Also, there is no “Featured” section in the Market app on my phone!
BrianH
24 January, 06:58
I randomly went to the android market and saw the app in the “featured” bar at the top, I immediately got excited, installed it, and so far it has exceeded my expectations. Awesome. Now I have a use for the little audio cable thing the G1 came with :)
Way to go guys. Thanks!!
Pinar
24 January, 09:28
if you can’t afford to resolve that ridiculous country restrictions, at least you can upload the .apk file somewhere in the downloads section. right?
Daniel
24 January, 09:54
I have a G1 developer phone, and I can’t find this application in the market. What’s up with that? Where can it be downloaded otherwise?
Alan Soon
24 January, 10:00
I can’t find it in Market either. I’m on an unlocked G1 in Singapore.
Max Howell
24 January, 11:18
@M it should handle 3G -> Edge fine, but there’s not much we can do to resolve the mobile network -> wireless network transition because your IP address changes. We’ll be streaming to the previous address.
We could do some magic with the streamer and re requesting the stream midpoint with a magic cookie. I’ll talk to the streamer people about this again.
I’ll be surprised if any other apps do this though.
Russ Garrett
24 January, 11:20
Guys,
As with all our mobile applications, the Android app is only available in a limited set of countries. This is due to our licensing obligations – licensing music for mobile devices is a difficult field. Sorry we didn’t make that clear in the post.
We are working on making our mobile services available in as many countries as possible.
hello_android
24 January, 13:09
Cmon whats up with this app. In which countries is it available?
Daniel
24 January, 13:54
Why don’t you release it anyway and let the user decide if it’s legal or not in his/her country?
Thor F
24 January, 14:41
@last.fm : i love you guys, but if you keep restricting usage to certain countries only, your going to go the way of pandora, ie out the window.
DownloadBird
24 January, 15:35
Awesome!
Jason
24 January, 17:56
@Daniel: That’s the most patently ridiculous thing uttered so far in these comments. Kudos!
Oskar Strain
25 January, 13:02
I hope that soon will come a Last.fm on Simbian platforms.
Have a nice day, Oskar Strain
ian
25 January, 20:24
Here is where to get the app
http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm%2BAndroid
or it is in the android market just type ointo google and it is in the middle just have to scroll along to find all the different apps, but what i dont like about it, is it should have a list as very time consuming on a pc to go through all the apps
thanks
Sander
25 January, 20:46
Wow, it looks very good. However, the fact that it’s not available in many countries is just sad.
Is there any way you could give a progress report on this? What are the problems you are having? What countries are you working on?
Уеб Дизайнер
25 January, 21:06
Good job guys!
Marc
25 January, 22:56
Not available in Germany: fail!
sti3
26 January, 15:53
This makes me happy. Takes a while to start the stream though.
sti3
26 January, 16:01
Ok it could use some sort of crossfading/prebuffering between tracks.
And something I’ve been asking for for ages is last.fm to implement some kind of compression (e.g. aac+) so that the streams take less bandwidth but still sound good.
The interface is quite nice though. Love the “On Tour” link in the corner—brilliant!
Matt Soreco
26 January, 21:47
Hello,
It seems loved tracks not saving. There were at some point, but it just stopped. I had spent a few hours doing this, and they were never saved (on the phone or displayed on the web).
- Matt
B
26 January, 22:48
Is there any way to download the application or its source code if you don’t own a G1?
BerryP
27 January, 11:11
@ All who have problems finding the client: try searching for “last” in the Market.
I’ve found that putting non alphabetical characters in search often yields no results.
BTW: I’m a UK user and have it installed. Only prob is that it doesn’t recognise my account details so can’t use it. Odd :-/
Max
27 January, 18:55
Not to be found anywhere in the market. What a shame!
Can aynone upload the .apk to some other site?
Mykalangelo
28 January, 06:26
Being new to lastFM and not wanting to sound like I’m giving them a BJ, compared to anything anywhere music related this is the most well put together, thought out clearly, and willing to always advance music source I’ve ever seen. The depth, the listener consideration, all of it is top notch, unparalleled. And I think this every time I log in. Just thought you should know.
Jonas
28 January, 17:57
@Oskar Strain
Symbian S60 has a Last.fm client, it´s called mobbler, get it here: http://code.google.com/p/mobbler/
It works like a charm, it scrobbles from the inbuild player as well.
/Jonas
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Rick
2 February, 17:04
“licensing music for mobile devices is a difficult field”
Fine. That’s no excuse for Last.fm’s attitude towards the users getting caught in the crossfire.
“Hey, we’ve got a great new mobile app! Come use it!!”
“Oh, you’re from the wrong country, so fuck you, and no, we don’t owe you an explanation either.”
Great way to deal with loyal users.
wmluvr
6 February, 22:39
Hoping for a Windows Mobile official client Real Soon Now. Come on guys!
Izukki
16 February, 12:55
“One Android only feature we’re pretty excited about is… background streaming! This means you can keep listening while you browse the web, buy songs from Amazon or check out maps for an event that looks interesting. We’ve been playing with the prototypes for a while and can honestly say this is a killer feature.”
C’mon, where’s the beef? I do not understand this hype around Android. Series 60 smartphones have been multitasking perfectly for years! Unofficial S60 scrobbler Mobbler works in the background very nicely.
crispy
23 February, 20:34
It works surprisingly well over 3G.. now if only T-Mobile could sort out decent 3G coverage for my journey to work, I’d be happy.
reviews
1 March, 13:48
Great work guys. Looking forward to see it in action, live.
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