last.fm for iPhone is a music streaming application that
allows you to listen to internet radio
online, much like a radio station but with the
difference that you select your style of music and the application will recommend the music that best fits your style.
Then you have the option
of adding the songs to your play list where you can access and purchase them online or continue to listen to random selection of songs from
your style.
Last.fm for iPhone is a music sharing application, where you can
create a Radio Station with a specific
style and then share those songs from this style with
friends and others of the lasfm network. It is different than other internet radio streaming apps like Wunderradio.
Others will know what style you like and what songs you have been
listening to, and they can also listen to those songs.
The first step with last.fm is to register
for a free account on-line at lastfm. Click on Join, and fill out
the form to create a login and password.
You can also sign up using
last fm application for iPhone itself by tapping the Sign up button. Simply enter
the information required to create an account.
When you start last.fm for iPhone, the first thing to do is to create a
new station
by tapping Start a New Station.
Then, enter the name of the artist of your style you
like to get recommendation for your station.
The beauty of Last.fm is that it
support international music,
so I can select an Arabic artist
and get
recommendation for many Arabic songs. In this example, I enter
a Lebanese artist called Haifa Wahbe.
I just enter Haifa, and tap the search
button, and then I
get a list of available matches for that artist.
You can see Haifa Wahbe is the
first found match. Tap the name to start the Haifa Wahbe Radio. Buffering will
start,
and the music should start shortly. The buffering should be fast if you
are connected through
wifi.
Once the internet radio starts playing, a picture of the artist album
will show on the screen. Many options are available on this screen.
First,
you can tap on the picture to zoom it to fill the screen.
The heart
button allows you to add a
song to your favorite.
Tapping the button with the down arrow gives
many choices. You can Share, Tag, Add to Playlist, and finally Buy a song on
iTunes.
My favorite option here is the Add to
Playlist button. Tap this button
to add a song to your playlist that you can later access from
your computer by logging to your web page account. From this screen you
can also create a new Playlist
by tapping the plus button at
the top right.
If you don't
like a song, you can simply tap the forward button to skip it to the next random song of a similar style.
Tap the Stop button to stop the song from playing.
Moreover, tap the i button at
the top right to get more information about the
artist.
This screen
gives a brief history about
the artist, and how many records he or she has. It tells you the country
of origin and much more information.
You can also access links to external sources about the artist that
will open in iPhone Safari leaving last.fm.
At the bottom of the screen there are more options.
For example, you can see the tags to find this
station, find Similar Artists, Events, and Top Listeners.
The most interesting option is
the Similar Artist button
which will list all similar artist,
and then you can tap on any of the
artist to listen to that internet radio station.
Also, Top Listeners button
allow you view who
are the people who listen to this artist most. Then you can tap on
his/here name and go to their internet radio station, and see what
artists they listen to,
and listen to their styles.
Back to the home screen, tap the Profile button at the bottom to
access your Top
Artists, Top Albums where you can buy the album,
or Top Tracks to
buy the tracks that you have been adding to your playlist.
You can also
review your recently played songs and also see your friends profile.
Tap the Recently Played button
to see what you have listened to recently, and then you can tap on any
artist in the list to perform further
actions on the selected song.
Once
you select a song, you can mark it as Love
Track or Ban Track.
The Share button
allows you to send an email to all lastfm friends, or send an email
manually to friends telling them about the track.
Also, you can add the track to
your Playlist, Tag it or Buy it from the iTunes music
store.
Tap the Now Playing at any
time to go back to the music playing control screen.
Conclusion:
Last.fm for iPhone is one of my best internet
radio applications for
the iPhone. The sound quality is excellent, and it even
plays good
over Edge network. However, sometimes if the connection is weak, you
will have long time buffering and interruptions while listening to radio stations.
Although last.fm for iPhone
application for sharing music, I don't personally use it to share
music. I just create a radio station to listen to random music in a style that I pick.
I think this is really cool specially listening to international music like Arabic
music, and of course it is free unless you decide to buy the songs. Also check out the Arabic iPhone applications page if you are interested to find more Arabic language and arabic radio applications in the App Store.