Last weekend, I tried to get my Android phone to scrobble the songs that I listened to via Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player.  I tried the Last.fm Android client.  I loaded the ScrobbleDroid client (which did work with the Android Music app).  But I had no success.  So I set the problem aside for a few days.
And then things started to work.
I decided to play something at the office.  And I noticed that there was a message in the information bar of my phone.  The message was simple: my music was being scrobbled to Last.fm (via the Last.fm client).  This was great news.  But as an analytical geek, I was disappointed because I had no idea which change resulted in the successful outcome I was experiencing.
Unsatisfied with success, I’m now trying to reconstruct my apparent success.  The only thing that changed during the time between when it wasn’t working and the time that it began working was that a new version of the Last.fm client was deployed to my phone.  [Note: I used passive voice in the last sentence because I didn’t deploy it by choice.  I had selected automatic updates for this app.  And it got updated.  Using active voice, I would say that my phone (and the app market) updated the application.]
Since this is the only change I can identify thus far, I must lean towards this change as being the probable source of my success.  But I am not wholly convinced – yet.  There is an obvious interaction between Google Music, Last.fm and ScrobbleDroid.  And since one of those components did change, then I could just close the book: problem solved.  Unfortunately, I haven”t seen the code for any of these components, so I can’t really say which is the root cause for the change in status.
But at this moment, I am going to accept victory as a desirable outcome.  I now have one cloud music application that does meet the majority of my listening needs.  That system is the Google Music client.  I also have one retail music channel that meets my needs.  That music channel is Amazon.
On the whole, I have one question: what’s changed?  That’s easy.  I’ve finally broken the leash that iTunes has on my music library.  Now that I am not wholly dependent upon Apple, I can objectively evaluate the iCloud offering whenever it becomes available.
For now, there is peace in the music valley at Chez Roo.
-Roo