Retrieve list of songs ordered by last play time in iOS

Question

I need to obtain a list of the N most recently played songs from an iOS device, in order.

The only way I can imagine doing it, at the moment, is by getting

Answer 1

One way is to take the array of MPMediaItems you get from the MPMediaQuery and sort it by MPMediaItemPropertyLastPlayedDate using an NSSortDescriptor:

NSTimeInterval start  = [[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970];

MPMediaQuery *songsQuery = [MPMediaQuery songsQuery];
NSArray *songsArray = [songsQuery items];

NSSortDescriptor *sorter = [NSSortDescriptor sortDescriptorWithKey:MPMediaItemPropertyLastPlayedDate
                                                         ascending:NO];
NSArray *sortedSongsArray = [songsArray sortedArrayUsingDescriptors:@[sorter]];

NSTimeInterval finish = [[NSDate date] timeIntervalSince1970];
NSLog(@"Execution took %f seconds.", finish - start);

This sorts the new array by most recently played first. I tested this on a iPhone 4S using 2000 songs and it took .98 seconds.

Answer 2

I think MPMediaQuery is the only way to get recently played songs from an iOS device at this time.

You can use property MPMediaItemPropertyLastPlayedDatewhich will return you the most recent calendar date and time on which the user played the media item. Value is an NSDate object.

http://developer.apple.com/library/IOs/#documentation/MediaPlayer/Reference/MPMediaItem_ClassReference/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/doc/constant_group/General_Media_Item_Property_Keys