Last.fm Desktop Application Beta (2012)

After what's seemed like an eternity, the *new* Last.fm Desktop Application is ready to beta test!

Windows
Mac
Unfortunately, this beta is unavailable for Linux users. We'll update this page when it's ready.

Download and install the beta. Note: You will need to uninstall the old version. The new application was built from the ground-up, introducing an all-new look, with greater stability and enhanced functionality.

Remember that this is a beta, and there are bound to be issues we need your help in identifying. By installing the Last.fm Desktop Application Beta, you understand the risks associated with pre-releases, and are willing to accept these risks.

We hope you love it as much as we do!

Please post all of your observations, bug reports, feature requests and praise to this forum.

First impression is awesome, thanks for all the hard work! :)

I did notice a couple of minor issues:
When I first clicked on "Play" - without choosing any station - I got a "Server error - please try again: 16"
The 16 looks like a countdown, but it didn't actually count.
After I paused and hit play again the error didn't come up, instead it said that I was playing "[unkown]" by "[unknown]" (without actually playing anything, it didn't scrobble either).
That's probably still just a minor issue since clicking 'play' without choosing any station should normally just start the last one, right?

Another thing is, that I can't seem to change the language in the settings, it's set to system language by default, but the option is disabled.

Also the 'cancel' Button in the settings is not working for me.

I've now had a case where scrobbling from my local player it doesn't seem to recognise the length of the track... it scrobbles after 31 sec, after that the timer just stops.

And another small issue: the capitalization seems to be a bit off. According to the scrobbler I'm listening to "TV On The Radio", while the profile on the site correctly displays them as TV on the Radio.

Can't hide the dock icon (in OS X)... What is this madness!?

Beautiful from me, too. Beautiful work. :)

My feedback:

Need to uninstall the old one before installing this one (on Mac). It doesn't replace it for you. .... but loved the installation process! Lovely!

I like how it's dynamic. So it looks different if you're playing from your media player or streaming from the site.

Also not keen on the volume slider being at the bottom of the screen, but agree, minor niggle.

I see Preferences under Last.fm to the top left, but I don't see it in the dropdown from the mini-icon in the menu bar. That's the one I always use. .... and I just noticed the little gear button. Carry on, don't mind me. :)

History is missing. I like that record of radios I've listened to.

Recently Banned is also missing. Handy for which you accidentally hit the wrong button.

Friends now listening is lovely.

Love the share button! Shares to Twitter and Facebook too. Superb.

Liking the little shopping trolley too.

When you unlove, the little heart breaks! Awwww!

I managed to start the same track 3 times. It got to a certain point then the client paused itself, then when I clicked play, it restarted. It only scrobbled once, although it did go past the broken line. It was this track: http://www.last.fm/music/Silence+Kit/_/Lemonsmellstreet

When I skipped, I got a yellow exclamation mark message ""could not open media source.: 101" but the radio continued to play.

Devices: can't remember what the old one did, but on the new client, when you open gears and open the Devices page, when you add your device, it doesn't update. You have to close the whole thing and open from gears again. (if that makes sense?) You have to do this for each device.

Adding tags - I'm used to tagging on the site now, where I can type part of a tag name and the rest shows. e.g. I type '11' to see 'my gang 11'. But I can't do that in the new client. ... I see once I've typed them in, it remembers them.

Really like how you have the option to tag track, album or artist. Very nice! Tagging all worked fine for me, on both Now Playing and Scrobbles. Except, I click enter to enter my tag, but the buttons Cancel and Tag are clear, I'd expect Tag to be blue.

Number of scrobbles is showing incorrectly. In the client it says 184,862. But on my profile, it says 184870

Loved tracks is also showing 1 out. Client is 1 behind.

Top Artists Overall - bit redundant for me as these rarely change.

Top Artists - don't match up with what's on my profile. Number of plays and order. My profile: http://grab.by/bXa6 The client: http://grab.by/bXaa

That's it for now, I think. Sorry it's so long and hope it's useful. :)

PS: client just quit itself unexpectedly.

After installing and trying to connect my account, I'm getting the following error:

"There was a problem communicating with the Last.fm services. Please try again later."

Note: All proxy/abnormal internet connection has been temporarily disabled here.

I'm listening to Chrome's On It by Telepathe (http://www.last.fm/music/Telepathe/Dance+Mother/Chrome's+On+It)

I haven't marked that song as loved (I checked on the track page), but the heart shows as red in the desktop client.

I marked the previous track as loved via the desktop client, so maybe it's a refresh issue and the button is still red from when I clicked it for the previous track?

I don't really like that a message pops up from the icon every time a new track starts. It's probably a nice option to have, though, so an optional setting would improve that feature.

Overall, it's looking great! I love that it shows the full song length in the application with the "scrobble point" marked on the timeline. Nice that it also shows right on the application with Spotify scrobbling is happening.

Just launched the Mac application, it waited for iTunes to shut, closed iTunes and then asked for the path to Spotify. I don't have Spotify, hit cancel and it crashed.

Launched fine a second time though.

It would be nice to have some kind of progress indication for long tasks, such as "Processing iPod scrobbles."

It's been doing that for about 10 minutes now.

Hi!

It's great that you did something with old desktop player! I just started using beta version, and I have few thoughts about the layout.

I've used player on last.fm website for quite a long time now, and what I really loved to do while listening to radio was browsing comments on songs site (maybe you could add this to desktop also).

I really love pasue button. That's the greatest invention since wheel :)

The look of the application is a bit dark and in my opinion there is a lot of space that is left unused. ( see below) I think you could add some light colors to make it brighter. I don't mean pink, but when you look at the old player ie. there were some light blueish things.



I would love option to personalize language of the application (my operating system is in Polish, but I am using last.fm in English). Right now I have to view artist descriptions in Polish which I am not very happy about.

I think it would also be great if the application could check in database if given track is in my loved tracks and if it's already there the "love button" could grey out. I think I'm not the only person who tends to "love track" every time I hear it. :)

Anyway, biiig thanks for bringing something new. You are doing great work!

nice nice nice nice <3

Naijca said:
After installing and trying to connect my account, I'm getting the following error:

"There was a problem communicating with the Last.fm services. Please try again later."

Note: All proxy/abnormal internet connection has been temporarily disabled here.In case anyone is or will have the same issue, re-installing the beta client worked for me.