Play count and scrobble sync

[jvgomg]

Feature Request

Sync play counts from the iPod back to your collection or scrobbling services.

Description

When you listen to music on your iPod, play counts are recorded on the device. This feature would read those counts and sync them back to your library, or submit them to scrobbling services like Last.fm or ListenBrainz.

Use Cases

• Keep accurate play counts across your library and iPod
• Scrobble iPod listens to Last.fm or ListenBrainz
• Use play counts to drive smart playlists or sync filters
• Track listening habits across devices

Status

Later — on the roadmap but not yet scheduled. Vote and comment to help us prioritise.

[DuncanGJ]

would love this

[jvgomg]

My methodology has been to keep podkit as stateless as possible - so not needing to store cached data between syncs. This poses a problem for processing the play count data on an iPod because it's simply an incrementing number stored against a track.

To maintain statelessness the process would mean wiping an iPod tracks play count to zero each time a play count sync happens. Do you think this is acceptable? Do you see any reason to want to keep the play count data on the device?

Otherwise the alternative is storing state for each play count sync (either on the iPod or locally) which tracks numbers and dates so that differences can be calculated. I'd rather not deal with that complexity if possible.

[DuncanGJ]

I don't think there's any reason to keep the iPod tracks play count on the device. The primary use case for play counts is scrobbling. As long as scrobbles get tracked then why would it matter if that data is retained on the device?

One issue is that play counts could only be pushed to last.fm/listenbrainz on device sync, and afaik iPods only track play count without an associated date. So listen counts would come over as a batch. I personally don't have a problem with that, but I am not the most diligent last.fm user.

[jvgomg]

I hear you and I'm glad you agree. Yes - defiantly there will be a date resolution issue. I know the listenbrainz API understands and handles this. I presume the other services do too. I'm hoping the listen data can also be tagged with some sort of info about where/how the listening took place - maybe include the iPod's name.

This feature is quite near the bottom of my list right now as there so many reliability and onboarding things to iron out.