Simplify 1.2 for iPhone: Scrobble to Last.fm
One of the most frequent iPhone requests we get is to let users scrobble, that is to post songs played to Last.fm. In fact, we just received this email from France:
I have been using the iPhone version since it became available on the App Store. It works great, and I use it a lot. I even gave you 5 stars on the App Store rating system. [ed: Thanks!].
I listen to music almost constantly, in the car, at work and often in the morning and evening. I am also a user of the Last.fm web site where I can scrobble the songs I listen to. I like it because it tracks what I listen to and suggests artist I should try. I have discovered a lot of new artists that way.
I would be grateful if you could include an option in the iPhone version of your application to enter login information to the Last.fm account and it would scrobble every song listened through your marvelous application ! I really think that it would be a killer upgrade, since a lot of music lovers use Last.fm.
On the desktop, scrobbling plug-ins are compatible with Simplify Media. On the iPhone, though, there was no way to send information to your profile – until now. Announcing Simplify 1.2 for the iPhone and iPhone Touch, available as a free update through the Apple App Store.
Like any upgrade, when you install Simplify you will be prompted for your Simplify Media screen name and password. With version 1.2 you can turn scrobbling on and enter your Last.fm account information. With this optional setting enabled, any tracks you listen to using Simplify will be added as recently played on your Last.fm profile.
Thanks to Jean-Claude and many others for the feature suggestion, to Last.fm for the API and to Apple for the very fast approval.
There are also new builds of Simplify Media desktop available from the download page. The most current versions are 1087 for Mac, 1087 for PC and 1084 for Linux. The changes from build 1080 are relatively minor, so we aren’t going to trigger an update. However, if you have had any problems we encourage you to try the latest. There are several fixes for rare but significant bugs.
If you have any issues, feel free to contact us using the troubleshooting tool or by email at support at simplifymedia.
Nick said,
November 23, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
I can’t seem to log in to last.fm… I turn it on and can’t enter a pasword or user name. Those fields are just unresponsive to touch. Any help?
Jean-Claude said,
November 23, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
Hello!
Thanks a lot for filling my request !!
Keep on the great work!
paul said,
November 23, 2008 @ 6:20 pm
@Nick, try tapping again. On my first gen phone I sometimes have trouble with text entry fiields.
Eric Fradella said,
November 24, 2008 @ 1:35 am
Thank you so much for adding this feature! I’ve used Last.fm for years and this is one of the big things I wanted for SimplifyMedia on my iPhone.
The only thing left off of the top of my head is smarter sorting (ignore “A,” “An,” “The,” etc. when sorting) and allowing you to group by compilation like iTunes does (so I don’t have thousands of artists with only one song from compilations on my artists list).
Thanks again, guys, I love the app. It was one of the biggest reasons I bought my iPhone.
Abel said,
November 24, 2008 @ 2:59 am
@Nick : i had the same problem too. The solution : Don’t tap on the words “login” or “pass”, but tap on white space jsut after.
RJ said,
November 24, 2008 @ 3:40 am
Good work guys, I’m installing the app now
stas said,
November 24, 2008 @ 5:37 am
How I can scrobble from PC, guys?
Jimbalaya said,
November 24, 2008 @ 10:11 am
This is great! I love how it provides live feedback on the site (I’ve used some 3rd party scrobblers in the past that only scrobbled the track after it was played)…
I agree with Eric, above, when he suggests that the app ignore “A,” “An,” “The,” etc. when sorting.
I’d also like to request the ability to search, and the caching of the artists/albums/etc list. I have a TON of music, so it takes a bit to rebuild the list of artists each time I open the app.
The ability to create playlists would be a great addition that would go nicely with the ability to search…
Fantastic software, thank you for continually improving it!
James said,
November 24, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
I have a suggestion to make. I hesitate, because I like your product. I’ve had it since the beginning and know how much hard work you have put into getting it to work so well, and that you have many priorities.
My suggestion is, however, to add a shuffle option similar to iTunes. I use about 175 playlists to organize my music. Too many I am sure, but I like to group similar music and in iTunes use the shuffle within each playlist. This would for me anyway, be a great addition to SimplifyMedia.
Thanks for a great product and for listening to your customers!
Peter B said,
November 25, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
Unable to find SimplifyPeer.exe on my system to add it to list of firewall exceptions.
LEMONed said,
November 26, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
What about caching? If I don’t have any internet connection on the street, what I’m listening to won’t be able to get scrobbled?
LEMONed said,
November 26, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
Was just wondering why the design/theme of this blog looked so familiar.
Irek said,
November 26, 2008 @ 9:26 pm
awesome! this was one feature that I missed most. worked without a problem on first try … I no longer have to carry the music with me and perform manual updates with the iSproggler! simplify media rules … thanks!
Ken Botwinick said,
November 29, 2008 @ 8:29 pm
It would be great if there was a preference as to when the song should be scrobbled (after playing 50%, etc.).
Also, I wish there was some way to stream my podcasts with this program. It seems it currently only works for music?
Aaron Lake said,
December 1, 2008 @ 8:59 am
Don’t forget to join the (unofficial) SimplifyMedia group on Last.FM. Hope to see more SM users over there.
http://www.last.fm/group/SimplifyMedia
Nick said,
December 1, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
The mac download link doesn’t seem to have been working for the past 2 days. The PC and linux versions start downloading fine, but the mac client never starts.
Ciao,
Nick said,
December 2, 2008 @ 11:16 am
Now it’s working again, and I love it! Great job.
Brian said,
December 4, 2008 @ 10:00 am
I am now a Last.FM fan thanks to your adding this. I have been a big fan of your desktop and App since I first got them over the summer.
I see that Flycast can now stream in the background. Any chances you may do the same in the near future?
Joren said,
December 5, 2008 @ 11:37 am
Awesome app guys, keep it up! I would love to see support for songbird – it’s open source so making a plugin would be easier than winamp/itunes I would imagine.
Leon said,
December 6, 2008 @ 5:44 pm
The iPhone app is great! The $3,99 were very well spent.
It would be great to be able to rate songs (1 to 5 stars) synchronized with the server computer. Also, a search option would be nice… like the one in Winamp or iTunes.
I hope you can keep adding features to the iPhone app… this would make the app even better.
Justin Clark said,
December 16, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
The functionality of this app is awesome, the interface sucks. I am enough of a utilitarian to keep using it regardless, because it is the only (easy) way to stream my library to my phone. Unfortunately it means I have to stumble through the interface until there is a better option.
Question: Why is the simplify desktop client stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of “Updating Song List” + “Updating Playlists”? It has scanned 3 times while I have been typing this.
My library is on an external drive, and consists of about 70gb of music, or 13,000 songs. I am running Mac OS X 10.4.11 on a Powermac Dual G5. I am using it with a second generation iPhone.
Any Help? Everything still seems to work fine, but the little simplify app on the computer drives me nuts with its progress bar always cycling.
P.S. – Why can’t this program just be a drop down menu on the menu bar, or something less…. fugly?
Marc Manley said,
December 19, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
@SimplifyMedia,
First off, what a great product and what willing support! Many thanks. I wanted to post a resolution to an issue I had for others to benefit from before I ask another question. This was in pertaining to SM always hanging and crashing my Mac:
Delete the Simplify Media application file from your Applications folder (or wherever it was copied).
Please remove the following directories if the exists:
/User/Library/Application Support/SimplifyMedia
/User/ Library/Caches/SimplifyMedia
/User/ Library/Logs/SimplifyMedia
and delete the following file if it exists:
/User/Preferences/com.simplifymedia.Manager.plist
My other question is that I’m having trouble with all of my music showing up. For instance, when I do a song count in my iTunes library, it’s around 9600+ songs, while via SM, only 9400 show up. It doesn’t seem to be associated by artist [for instance, all of my Miles Davis albums show up except for two] and a few other oddities. There seems to be no difference between iTunes purchased music and ripped music. Older versions of iTunes vs. newer versions [in terms of when/how they were ripped]. Just curious if other people are having issues with all their music showing up.
Thanks,
Michelangelo said,
December 20, 2008 @ 10:19 am
I love this app too! Please implement search soon, it would make it so much easier to listen to xmas music soon
I am using it on a Touch from new zealand while my music is in SF!
paul said,
December 21, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
@Michelangelo, we are working on it!
@Marc, the usual explanation is that iTunes protected DRM files are not displayed on the iPhone or iPod Touch. If that isn’t it, shoot us an email at support.
@Justin, if you have Leopard you can have Simplify run in the menu bar. Go to Preferences. Of course you can also minimize the window. As for your external drive, those pose special challenges for us, and we have been working on changes to our scan process for them that will be in our next desktop update.
@Leon, thanks for the good idea! Right now, we don’t make any changes to your iTunes library. Being read-only has some nice benefits for us in support, and I am not sure we are ready to change that just yet.
@Joren, a precondition for player support is that it be network enabled. We use DAAP to communicate with iTunes and Winamp. When Songbird supports DAAP or even UPnP we’ll be happy to look at support it. It’s great, and we congratulate them on their 1.0 release.
@Brian, Flycast has a Safari mode. We’d love to operate in the background and hope that Apple will allow that for music apps like us and Pandora in the future.
latpack said,
December 22, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
my biggest request, if you guys would be so kind as to consider it; is to include a “favourites” option. There have been so many moments while listening to other people’s libraries that I wish I could track what I’ve listened to. A simple “F” icon next to the song being played would be easy to implement I think. An inclusion of a “favourites” menu could show you the list of songs you’ve favourited and the ability to play the song again from the same location it was bookmarked from.
This would be a huge deal to me and I imagine others would like this addition as well.
Thanks, and keep up the great work!