App Name: Last.fm by Last.fm, Ltd.
Description: Your personal radio station on your phone.
How it works: Set up stations based on artist or group, tag or user and it will stream music right on your phone based on your selection. If you’ve used Last.fm online this app offers the same options and you can listen to the stations you set up online. While listening to a station you can nice bio info on the artist/group and an added feature shows if they are currently on tour. If the artist is you can look at upcoming events. Because the station plays music similar to an artist or tag you set up if there is a song you love you can hit the ‘heart’ button and also select the ‘dislike’ button for songs you don’t want to hear again. You can skip songs indefinitely which is a nice plus.
Opinion: Once I set this up I was listening to my stations and enjoying it. I had tried Pandora but Pandora’s app had a lot of buffer issues and you only get 6 skips an hour. It does take the stations awhile to start but I didn’t have any issues listening and it didn’t have any long pauses between songs or artists. I like the customization and the bio info that I can read up on artists I may not have been familiar with before.
Ratings :
- Speed (3/5) – The stations booting up could use a boost but once its gets going it runs fine.
- Features (4/5) – Multiple options for searching for stations, detailed bio info, event searches.
- Theme (4/5) – The theme is clean and is similar to the Last.fm look online. Also, the album art from the player is top notch.
- Overall (4/5) – Very nice app that succeeds at bring streaming music to your phone.
Pro:
- Easy search features
- Find new music similar to artists or groups you like
- Works well without buffer issues
Cons:
- No pause feature
- Some limitations on artists’ songs available
Conclusion: This is one of the best for streaming music. Pandora and DroidLive are decent but they limited by buffer issues whenever I tried to use them. There are some artists that I wish I had more songs available but the selection is pretty good. The Last.fm app streaming player is the best for delivering music right to your phone.