iOS App of the Day: Last.fm

Posted by Amy Eichelberg

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

If you use your iPhone to listen to music then finding a good, music player is a must. If it’s free, even better. In my quest to find the best music app the iTunes store has to offer, I thought I’d check out the buzz worthy music app Last.fm. Some of you may already know that Last.fm was once a free radio service app, but has now transitioned into an ad-free, subscriber-only service for iOS and Android devices. While Last.fm remains free via its website and desktop app I wanted to go hands on with the iOS app to see if it was truly worth paying a monthly fee.

Pros:

No limit on song skips
No limit on monthly use
Interface is extremely user-friendly and easy to navigate
Clean looking interface
Current and vast music collection
Large selection of lesser known artists, great for music discovery
Shows tour dates and music events in a calendar view based on user’s location
Ad free
Monthly subscription fee is less than some competitors ($3/mo vs. $9.99 for Spotify)

Cons:

No pause button
Buffering issues- slight delay in between songs
Free trial only lasts for 50 tracks and then it becomes a paid subscription only based service
Does not let you play tracks on demand

How it works:

You simply select an artist and the app creates an intuitive playlist of songs based on the one artist you selected. As the music plays, you have the option to like or dislike each song. This helps the app modify your playlists in the future based on your preferences. Additionally, you have the option to add a specific song to a playlist, tag a song, or purchase the song directly from iTunes.

What’s cool is that you can see tour dates and concert event information for various artists found in your playlists in a calendar view. The best aspect of Last.fm is that you can skip as many songs as you want. I hated that with Pandora you could only skip six songs per hour, or 12 per day before you were stuck with whatever song they had lined up for that playlist. I also enjoyed hearing a solid selection of lesser known artists versus only mainstream artists that you find in other music apps. I’ve actually downloaded a handful of songs to my iPod that I would have never found thanks to discovering the artists on Last.fm.

The only complaints I have with Last.fm are relatively minor. The buffering between songs needs improvement as you can hear a slight pause in between songs, which gets a bit annoying. Additionally, there is not an option to pause a song, which seems odd for a music app, but again a small complaint.

Conclusion:

Last.fm is a decent music player app choice that stands apart from its competition with its flexibility and artist collection. Besides a few small complaints, I really enjoyed my free trial of the service. I understand that in order to provide an ad-free experience Last.fm felt it had to tack on a monthly fee, I’m just not completely sold. Granted $3.00 a month is a competitive price, at the end of the day nothing beats a free music app. If paying for a music app doesn’t bother you, then Last.fm is a worthy option with its more than reasonable monthly fee. For me, however, with so many other free music apps out there I’ll continue my quest to find the perfect one that won’t become another bill at the end of the month.