by GJ51 » Sat Feb 12, 2011 4:28 pm
It's a result of the evolution of the program. SS can only sense the active stream that a user is connected to. On the desktop browser, because bandwidth is sufficient, each user is truly "streaming", that is, the user is actually listening to the track that is being transmitted to the listner's desktop.
In the case of the mobile user the situation is different. Because bandwidth of mobile devices is so inconsistent, the mobile apps try to buffer ahead any tracks in the playlist in case there is degradation in connectivity during playback. The track is first stored on the sd card and then played back. This way if you have a good 3g connection, you have a good buffer of music stored ahead of the playback so that hopefully listening isn't interrupted when you hit a dead zone and there is no actual connection to your SS. As the music plays, if you reaquire a decent 3g signal, the buffering process continues, and your playback is uninterrupted even though you lost signal during playback.
So when the phone is connected to the server, the server is reporting the active stream being sent to the mobile device, which may not actually be what the user is listening to.
"user listen to now" is a remnant of SS that has been there long before the incorporation of mobile device connectivity. If you'd like it to say something else you should make a relevant post in the Feature Requests section. I'm sure Sindre would appreciate your suggestion.
Gary J
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