Pandora made a number of announcements tonight at a press/user event at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, which we covered earlier. Deals with Sonos and Sprint were announced that bring Pandora Internet radio into the home and to mobile devices.
They also made a pre-announcement, however, of an upcoming Wifi music player to be built by SanDisk and powered by Zing. The working prototype that CTO Tom Conrad demo’d tonight was physically similar to the Sansa Connect device launched last month with Yahoo, although it was slightly longer and thinner. The Sansa Connect device is also powered by Zing.
Few details were revealed, such as whether the device would include a hard drive. Including a hard drive would add significant cost to the product, although it would also allow music caching for periods when the user was outside of wifi coverage. They could also bundle a service that allowed users to purchase and download songs that the like, although this would also require a partnership with a third party music service.
Screen shots below. I had a few minutes to play with the device myself, but the pictures I took with my camera phone were a mess. My goal is to get a few of these to give away to TechCrunch and CrunchGear readers in the near future, even if I have to break into Zing’s offices and borrow them myself. Photo credit for bottom image goes to Brian Caldwell (his blog is here).
Pictures below. Click on top image for larger view.
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Now this is a really neat looking device, and maybe the first real Wifi enabled mp3 player (other than the Sansa connect) that looks at all interesting. Do we know yet whether you are only able to temporarily stream songs while you are in the range of another user? (some kind of social radio type system) Or is it a real honest too goodness portable music store? (what we all hoped the Zune would be)
Either way, Pandora is making some really solid moves in the right direction. With Last.fm chomping at the bit to enter the music video market and everyone else without any real clue how to build real lasting communities around music that don’t involve directly brokering the sharing of files — Pandora is positioning itself to become to internet radio what MTV was to terrestrial media.
Can’t want to see how this develops.
Sign me in. I ll even pay for the shipping fees.
Wow that’s impressive. I’m setting aside some money right now to buy one.
i thought pandora was scrapted
sounds nice
It has the obligatory round control area … ho hum
- its sounds like a good product; RB
Don’t know about that hard drive, but if it doesn’t have at least a couple gig of flash and the ability to play mp3s, it’s DOA. Otherwise, great concept. Something I’d very much be interested in.
Too bad I cannot access this due to being based in Singapore, but it does look pretty compelling.
This looks awesome I am going to have to keep an I out for this one.
Mike, I will create a diversion.
Couldn’t the iPhone do the same thing? Or they could create an app for the iPhone?
I wonder if this idea was spawned before or after the recent unveiling of the Slacker netradio station, which included plans for a portable hard-drive WiFi unit to be introduced this summer?
I was pretty sure this was just the sansa connect device running the pandora app on the zing platform. If it’s really a different form factor than the current connect device, it must be a next gen that zing is already working with, since it took them less than 3 weeks to get the prototype running. It’s certainly not a device built specifically for pandora.
This morning I updated the firmware on my sonos system and installed the Pandora service. This is fantastic!! It’s a real game changer.
They’ve done a great job of integrating the two services. Not only can you create radio stations right from your hand held controller, but you can also add songs and albums to your pandora list of favorites that you share with friends. Using Sonos, I can now listen to music on pandora and, if I like it, I go to Rhapsody and add it to my library. And I do all of this from my hand held sonos controller - nuts.
I hate to sound like a commercial, but . . . .
Looks interesting but it’ll be hard to beat the implementation Sandisk has done with Rhapsody on the e200 series of Sansa players. IMHO, tighter integration on that one than between iTunes and iPod. But overall, I like the direction Sandisk is taking, becoming more of a services platform. Some of these implementations will hit, some will miss but in the end competition will drive the value proposition up.
Looks kinda neat, but umm..
the Nokia N800 already does this & much more.
Comes with integrated Rhapsody player & can connect via WiFi or BlueTooth+Mobile Phone.
Not to mention it supports a wide variety of MP3 & Video player apps as well as streaming, internet radio, podcasts, full web browsing, chat, etc…
Hard to beat for the money - less than $350.
I doubt these new Wireless MP3 devices give you total access WiFi, I am sure it will be limited & have DRM restrictions.
As long as it has some form of caching system, I’m all about getting one.
am i missing something? why not just stream this service onto cellphones and avoid yet another device to carry around…
This is not the first, nor will it be the last.
One writer refers to the Slacker unit. While Slacker is running a music distribution service, they have yet to trot out a unit.
This unit is a re-badged Yahoo unit. Not new, not original. It does continue to lock people to one service. It does not offer choice and it does not have memory. it is a 4 gig unit versus the Zune (which I am not a fan of) that has a 30 gig HD.
The Yahoo unit has a slot for a Micro SD card.
As it was put to me in the store, you are buying a $100 wifi unit with $20 worth of memory.
Watch for these over the next two years.
The other thing that needs to be taken into consideration. The Yahoo, AOL, Pandora, Rahpsody services are about to be wacked with HUGE inrcease in royalty fees. IT will make the cost of doing internet streaming crazy and will end up with a service fee that will look like your cable tv bill.
The cost increase will take the fees up to the point where to support a million users if till cost these broadcasters about 1000 dollars a user. Someone will need to pay for it.
A definite step in the right direction, but the elephant in the corner is going to step on this idea and crush it.
I’m with leandra here. I love Pandora at my desktop, but walking around, I’d rather have an app that is compatible with my Windows Mobile phone (VX-6700 in my case), or an iPhone if I go that direction.
Otherwise, they are taking a huge risk that the cell phone companies and cache-only music players like the iPod will add just enough smart-playlist functionality to pass them by on hardware the user already owns.
Speaking of which, Apple should definitely buy up Pandora and integrate their app with iTunes/iPod like they did with Coverflow.
Think of it: if I’ve already purchased the CD (as I have with several CDs recommended by Pandora), it can play the local, hi-bitrate version.
That is the best of both worlds: dynamic, smart playlists with thumbs up/down and fresh recommendations, and integration with existing legal collections. It would save Pandora a bundle on license fees when music is already owned (no stream, no fee), and provide a direct revenue stream for sales of songs that were recommended and streamed (something iTunes can’t offer yet, and more palatable than commercials).
i want last.fm submission capability
Thanks for the photo credit Mike!
They need to get a client running on the PSP, what a market. The number one homebrew app out there is PSP Radio, a shoutcast wifi radio program.
It’s about damn time. XM what?
drool……… I love pandora, and I love all your comments
Thanks for the info :))