Pandora Radio, the personalized internet radio service that has remained among the most popular iPhone apps on the iTunes App Store since its inception in July (and that I’ve previously called the iPhone’s killer app), will be releasing its most significant update yet later today.
Dubbed Pandora 2.0, the application will now include artist biographies, streaming samples for songs you’ve bookmarked, and perhaps most notably, the ability to create a station using a single song (much as you would using the iTunes Genius features). Other features in the new release include a CoverFlow-like view for song history, the ability to share stations with friends using Email, and a song progress bar (which has long been annoyingly absent).
Pandora has been around for years, offering a very powerful music recommendation engine powered by The Music Genome, which employees professional musicians to describe each song using over 150 attribute (or “genes”). Its iPhone app closed out 2008 ranked as iTunes’ top free application overall, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.
Update: It looks like you can download the application now here. The application page still shows the older version, but you’ll download the 2.0 version of the app.
Someone please buy Pandora already!
only if you are one of those someone first =)
Create or join a crunchie’s chat group at http://groups.im/
I love Pandora – so excited for this new version!
Im still waiting for a Slacker iPhone app.
Love the samples idea. I don’t know how many times I’ve bookmarked songs and never followed up because I couldn’t remember what it sounded like.
i’m excited
But the article doesn’t answer if the new Pandora update will provide the most requested feature: Will it run in the background?
Nope, not possible with the current SDK.
The jailbreak allowed users to put apps in background. Probably apple will enable it too, once they fix the battery life problem.
Not an iPhone user, are we Ian?
I use this app daily to work out with – SOOO excited for an update!
Ian – I agree it needs to run in the background so that we can listen to our radio while being productive on the iphone
Still not available in Canada – lame
Pandora 2.0 is also available for download through the update feature of the iPhone App Store app itself.
To fix their issues with increasing rates for internet streamed music, they should charge a one time $3.99 fee to download the app. I am sure they would quickly make a decent amount of money and make it more enticing for them to keep running.
I couldn’t agree more and wish they would license their API to help keep cash coming in.
For those wondering, Backgrounder still works!
The bookmarking feature is a really nice addition, but otherwise not a terribly exciting update – not to rain on their parade or anything
The progress bar is useful but it’s too bad you don’t see it by default. It would be way better if they just replaced the volume indicator with the progress indicator – the volume has hardware buttons so there’s no need for it on screen.
I wish Pandora would offer premium services. I would pay to be able to stream any song I wanted on demand, and replay songs I wanted to hear again.
Anyone know if this is ever going to get a UK release?
So I’ve been a Pandora user for over a year and heavily for almost a year.
I have maxed out at the 100 radio station limit.
You can create a song seeded station via the website, and it will then be available on your iPhone. Nice that it can be done via the iPhone now as well.
After downloading and playing with 2.0 a bit I give it a thumbs up and as far as I can tell the functionality matches the website in all the ways that I really care about.
Also, one thing that used to always bug me about the old version was that it didn’t always adjust the volume the first, second, or third time that i tried to slide it.
The app is maturing and I’m now curious as to where they can take it from here.
Cheers,
Chris
I guess “There is life outside USA” is not among new features?
Talk to the music labels and music publishers and more. In order to be a music service/website (and do it legally) you have to play by their game, which means a lot of red tape. Don’t blame Pandora. Just think about it: why would Pandora NOT want to be outside the US?
no one buys pandora because theres no money in it. they charge 300k for a home page sponsorship, and i’m pretty sure audio ads won’t work. i wish i could see their financials. If i did have money though, i’d low ball em and get a nice 30-50% discount.
Maybe Canadians will finally be able to use the site. It used to be only for US residents.
I use Pandora all day long, at work on my iMac and at home on the iPhone. I hope non-US residents can benefit from this service soon!
I’m still holding on and waiting for them to bring it to the newer BlackBerry devices. I realize of course it could be years or even never… but I can’t bring myself to switch just for this, as much as I’d love it.
Great!!!, the pandora radio works perfect!!!
I’m always surprised how closely the Alkaline Trio station mirrors my iTunes. Just installed the update and tried it out on this station – 13 songs in before it played a song I don’t have (and it happens to be from a band I very much do).
I never was a big Pandora user until I got an iPhone. There’s something really slick about plugging it into your car stereo and having a good radio station with no ads that pauses for you when you get a call. It’s awesome.
I’m surprised they still haven’t added the ability to thumb-up recent songs to the iPhone version. The whole point of an iPod is to put it in your pocket and forget about it. Would also be nice if the progress bar was easier to pull up.
I want to listen to Pandora thru my car stereo using my iphone and I can’t figure out how to do it. I know how to hook my ipod up to the car stereo, apparently I need to do something different for the iphone. Any help would be appreciated.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is pretty awesome.
Seriously new features… sounds pretty weak but since I cant use the app its pointless to me
I use http://last.fm
they are nice and give you access to all their data !
they work outside the usa as well….
this Pandora 2.0 looks like it’s trying to catch up to the last.fm app
Hi Guys..
What do you say about this application…will you vote for it?
http://www.idea...30;..d-Receiver
thanks
Still want to know when the SDK will get background processes so Last.fm can get scrobbling on the iPhone going.
le sigh.
Pandora on the iPhone sounds terrible to me. It’s not even stereo. They are streaming 64 kbps MONO MP3. When is someone going to get a clue and use HE-AACv2? At 64 kbps, HE-AACv2 would sound like 192 kbps MP3.
Yeah the quality is fairly shitty, even over wifi. But the service is so damn good, and free, I can’t really hold it against them.
@George oddly the iPhone doesn’t support streaming AAC – I work for a streaming internet radio firm and we’ve been working on figuring out why the iPhone doesn’t support an apple standard. ANYWAY, we’re broadcasting in 96kbps Stereo and it sounds really good to me…unfortunately, it doesn’t work at all with the Edge internet only 3G and wifi…whatever…we’ll figure it out…if anyone has any thoughts email me.
Does this work outside US..
Hate that music licensing issues! I cannot use the application (neither Last.fm’s app) even can’t buy from iTunes.
Downloaded and tried, seems the music quality is better or just maybe?
Seriously, why do you keep carrying on about Pandora? Last.fm runs circles around the entire service. Website, iPhone app etc.
We need this in the UK, seriously. Last.fm is good, but a pandora app (or a spotify iphone app) would be so much better.
Love Pandora. How about a lyrics feature? Would be suited well for Shazam, too.
ummmm the features that are introduced in Pandora 2.0 sound like what I already have with Last.fm
Es sensacional. Yo tengo 10 estaciones en Pandora y es mi trasfondo musical durante todo el dia. Desafortunadamente aún le falta poder seguir funcionando aún cuando se cambie de aplicación en el IPhone o se cierre con autolock.
It’s sensational. I have 10 stations programmed and Pandora is besides me along my day-work. Unfortunately stops working when you try to use other application or the IPhone will in auto-lock.
I love Pandora, but they need to make money fast. Although recorded music is getting cheaper, it isn’t going to be free anytime soon, and the major labels are going to continue demanding high fees for at least the next few years. I would hate to see Pandora go out of business; it is a wonderful app.
Any ideas on how best to monetize? Check out http://www.musimuse.com for similar discussions on music business.
Somebody give them the Globe of the United States of America otherwise they may think that some other countries exist out there.
Is anybody’s else stopping and starting on them this afternoon??? Really starting to piss me off!
The Toy Lounge of St. Paul MN also creates iPhone apps for radio stations – http://thetoylo.../radio-stations – begin with a basic starter app for streaming radio, up to 5 streams per app. Add optional ad serving and iTunes tagging. Works for traditional radio stations and online stations too.
I enjoy listening to Pandora stations on my iPhone but I also found this really cool gadget that lets me broadcast the Pandora music to any regular radio in my house.
I found it here: http://www.usbf...ransmitters.com .
Thanks to everyone for sharing their tips.