Just over two months ago, Last.fm launched its first application for iPhone and iPod touch devices. And a whole lot of people enjoyed it then. Forward to the present day, and the company is officially taking the wraps off version 2.0 [iTunes URL].
You may have already been made privy to this update through leaked videos and images, as the company admits. But now the download is out, according to Toby Padilla at Last.HQ. And given my brief experience with the update, I’ll say it is quite an improvement from what came before. That goes as much for its enhanced visual allure as anything under the hood.
As Toby explains, the user interface is vastly improved, and his statement really does have merit. The craftwork of how transitions through the menu system are made and how the frontmost page looks is really appreciable. Your options are clearly delineated. You can start a new station, listen to your library, items recommended by Last.fm, or access recent stations. Or, via a button situated along the bottom of the main screen, you can delve into your user profile and most everything of importance that it contains. Granted, before 2.0 arrived, the Last.fm application for iPhone and iPod touch devices was very intuitive. But it is even more so now. The edits the design and engineering team have done are pretty remarkable.
Insofar as your connection to the Web is concerned, if you find yourself experiencing disruptions to music playback, as may have happened via 3G connections and most certainly would occur via EDGE connections (Wi-Fi of course is best out of three), you’ll have to tolerate such happenings for some time longer. But the company says it is “working on some back-end changes that will make streaming more reliable on slower connections….” For the time being, hotspots remain the best of friends.
Another point of contention, originally made back in July, was the limited number of markets in which people could utilize the application. Unfortunately, the previous list of places - the US, Canada, UK, France, Spain, and Germany - remains the selection.
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