There are certain things in life, such as a motorised vehicle, dishwasher or mobile phone; that you don’t know you really need. Then you can’t live without them. As a music lover, last.fm is one of those things. A service that listens to your music tastes (i.e. your scrobbles), and compares them to what the rest of the world is listening to (i.e. is scrobling); providing recommendations from a clever analysis of similar music tastes. Although recommendations is a a killer feature, there are many others, such as creating playlists that may be shared with friends and simply understanding your own listening habits.

This kind of recommendation technology or “engine”, also known as collaborative filtering, is nothing new. Every time you log in to Amazon or Digg, the majority of what you see on your personal homepage will be based upon the preferences of people with a similar taste, or loosely connected social networks.That’s not to say that the last.fm have continually aced in execution and evolved with their community to provide WOW factor features in each development. I would substitute the word release for development, however last.fm is a service that spans many platforms, with mature and exciting releases across the board.

According a tweet from Kevin Rose, founder of the Digg, (thanks, again) version 2 of the last.fm iPhone looks to set for an imminent release. This rumour is backed up by a leaked video that shows off some exciting new features.

It’s very late here in London, so I’ll leave it to you to check out to video. I hope to have time for a fuller analysis of the features later. In the meantime, I wonder whether this app is designed for the App Store or a jailbroken iPhone. Last.fm first released an iPhone app months before the official launch of the iPhone Developer Program and SDK, and integrated killer features that simply aren’t supported by the ecosystem accessible to developers using Apple’s official SDK.

The original last.fm iPhone app could run as a background progress – scrobbling tracks whilst you send a text and “scrobbling” your listening habits over the air. No doubt these features will somehow be made accessible to iPhone developers, but for now I wonder whether this video is demonstrating an application that will be destribued by App Store or Cydia (the open source installer and program manager).

I noticed a “Buy From iTunes” button, that I’m sure Apple will be huge fans of, so maybe a deal will be made between Apple and last.fm to allow this third party application to operate outside the boundaries of the SDK. A golden ticket for a trusted and valued developer. Facebook are also moving to regain the control of the core system made accessible to developers after having being burnt by opening their service to developers without controls or limitations. This leads on to the topic of whether the user can and should be trusted to know what is best for them – a topic for which an entire post should be dedicated.

Enjoy the video and let me what you think!

NOTE: I now hear that background processes may actually be supported with the latest iPhone v.2 firmware upgrade.

So, you have a shiny new iPhone. It does (almost) everything from surfing the web to reading email and playing your favourite music. It couldn’t be better, right? Wrong. The bundled iPhone headphones are terrible!

I bought a pair of V-Moda Vibe Duo Headphones about 6 months ago, and have been completely blown away by how incredible they look and sound. Designed specifically for the iPhone, they plug straight into the headphone socket without an adapter and include a microphone with the answer/pause button.

I’ve been enjoying music so much more with these sleek alloy buds plugged comfortably into my ear holes. They do an incredible job of blocking out background noise without having to resort to a deafening volume. The fidelity has to be heard to be believed, with so many subtle details present, just as the artist intended. It’s like going from an old analogue black and white TV, to a full immersion High Definition IMAX.

In a time where white Apple headphone are nigh on ubiquitous, it’s refreshing to buck the trend with a longer black fabric coated cable. Maybe I’m being slightly paranoid, but whilst talking into a pair of white headphones you may as well wear a sign reading, “LOOK HERE THEIVES: I’VE GOT AN IPHONE!”.

I couldn’t recommend the Vibe Duo range more highly. If you feel like treating yourself (or someone else), visit amazon now and invest in a pair. Thank me later

UPDATE 16/11/08 – Despite V-Moda being the best sounding and looking headphone that I have ever owned, they did have one major design flaw that lead to two set breaking – the plug/jack design put too much strain on the cable. Twice V-Moda replaced the headphones efficiently and without any issues. The latest pair that were sent to me are reinforced and have been redesigned at the end – hopefully they should last a lot longer! Make sure you buy the newer model, where the wire comes out at an angle from the jack, instead of straight up.