I recently decided I wanted to start scrobbling again. I had set up a Last.fm account years ago, but stopped using it (instead I was keeping track of everything I listened to using custom software – I’ll talk more about that some other time). I wanted to scrobble songs that I played on my iPod Touch using the default Music player (not some other app), as well as my desktop media player. My desktop media player of choice (foobar2000) has a scrobbling plugin, so that was easy. But scrobbling from my iPod Touch without a 3rd party app took some more digging.

Last.fm does have an iOS app that features streaming, but that is no longer going to be free. There’s also a software program that lets you scrobble songs played from your iDevice, but not in real-time (scrobbling only happens when you sync with iTunes – which is lame). So here’s what I wanted in my “perfect solution”:

• Scrobble songs played in real-time using the iDevice’s built-in Music app
• If the iDevice is not connected to the internet, queue songs and scrobble them the next time you are online
• Run in the background (just like the default Music app) to allow using other apps while still scrobbling in real-time

Not too much to ask for, considering all the new tools Apple has given developers in recent iOS releases. And the solution I found pretty much does all of those things – but you’ll need a jailbroken iDevice. I love jailbreaking, so that one requirement did not bother me at all. And the solution is a little app called “Scrobbl”. Open up Cydia and search for “Scrobbl”. Note that there is “Scrobbl” and “Scrobble”. As far as I can tell, one is supposed to work for newer iOS versions, although it wasn’t clear to me which one. However, I tried both on my iPod Touch 4th generation with iOS 4.2.1 and “Scrobbl” is the one that works for me. It is a free app from Cydia, and once you install it you just need to run it and enter your Last.fm username and password. So far it has worked perfectly for me!