This is great, I'm downloading it now. I've been waiting for an official desktop Pandora app for awhile. Thanks!

Downloaded and installed. A few quick thoughts...

- Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see much of a difference between this version and the Web site. Perhaps, some differentiation would provide a good reason for people to download and install the app.

- A good differentiator would be integration with other desktop apps (like IM or iTunes), third-party web-services (like Last.FM), maybe a scheduler/alarm-clock that plays music, or even keeping a playlist on the local disk. Things that would not be so easy to do in the browser.

- If you want to go more social with it, then integrated IM in the desktop client might be one way to take it.

- It's not clear from your post whether ads will be included in the desktop app if one has paid up for a subscription. I'm guessing not, but it's worth clearing up.

- On my MacBook Pro C2D, both CPU cores are pegged at 95%. Boy, you weren't kidding!

Looking forward to subsequent revisions.

Woha this is awesome!
just trying it out now
(first comment yah)

Hi Ramin,

Absolutely this is just a start for us -- just a baby step. The benefits over the website are in fact pretty modest right now to be sure but we wanted to get it out there both to start getting feedback and to gauge demand.

Tom
CTO @ Pandora

PS: Totally right that subscribers won't see ads on the desktop or on the web.

Why not just point to PandoraBoy, which is free and open source? Relying on Air seems unnecessary, even though it gets you the PC platform for free.

http://code.google.com/p/pandoraboy/

This is a great start and this is honestly what i've been waiting for from you guys!!!

Browser free Pandora goodness. w00t w00t w00t!

Pandora for Chumby please :-)

Some controls (at least the "thumbs up/thumbs down") would be terrific on the Mac menubar. The UI could use a revamping, something you guys are probably already working on. I know this is probably an issue for farther down the road but some Growl or QS integration would be much appreciated.

This would be VERY useful to me if it cuts down on the bandwidth being used for Pandora. If it does, I can make a case for installing it on my workplace Mac.

Congrats on the launch. I agree that it could use some more desktop-specific functionality (maybe scan my iTunes library and recommend new Pandora stations based on my most played artists), but it's a great start. If nothing else, it helps reduce the chance that I'll accidentally close the window mid stream.

Hi everybody,

Thanks for jumping on this and providing some feedback.

Chris -- lots of love for PandoraBoy, though the main issues for us is that we do need a Windows solution and PandoraBoy doesn't really fully embrace the ad model that's so critical to our survival. None the less, our AIR experience on the Mac is far from perfect. Looking at PandoraBoy again may be one way to address that.

Renee -- Installing version Flash 9,0,124 will help with bandwidth by leveraging the high quality, low bitrate HE-AAC codec. Both the desktop app and the web versions use less bandwidth with that version of Flash.

Joe, Nathan -- yep, while there's quite a bit more I want to see the desktop app do, just making listening one click away that can't be hijacked is enough for me to switch my listening over.

Thanks again for your comments. Keep 'em coming.

Tom

PS: We love chumby :-)

Wow, this is awesome!

Installed cleanly and started playing my stations right away! Really nice job!

Very cool.
Would love integration with the media keys on my keyboard - Pause/Play obviously, Fwd for next track and Rwd to open a menu to thumb up/down?

Downloaded and using on Macbook Pro now. Frankly I don't mind the ads, no differentiation b/t Air app and website, etc. The only thing keeping me going back to Pandoraboy is the lack of Apple remote support. And also growl notifications or task bar icon/now playing text would be awesome!

Thanks team,

Ray

Man this is awesome news; I fell in love with Pandora the day you guys released it but to be honest I rarely use it because it just feels unnatural and inconvenient in a browser.

At any rate; have you guys thought about beaming out audio ads after so many played songs? You collect geographic location info in profiles (e.g. Philadelphia, PA) so why not utilize that to build an ad platform for businesses like concert venues or even the type of ads you'd hear in terrestrial radio.

Then you could also add a paid premium service for people who want more features and no advertising. I wouldn't mind listening to ads coupled with a free tier of Pandora, but I'd definitely be inclined to pay a reasonable fee for a premium tier.

Anyway, that was my 2 cents. Keep up the good work.

I second PandoraBoy, It's a great app, and it even has Growl notification support. But I see this as a great step in the right direction. I would still love to see you charge a monthly fee to allow high-quality audio for your stations. (~256kbps) But that's my pet peeve.

Congratulations, Pandora team!

Tom, please feel free to contact me. I'd like to understand and hopefully resolve any issues that you're running into in the way of AIR. I downloaded it and it's working brilliantly on my Mac.

Cheers!

Rob Christensen
Product Manager, Adobe AIR team

i use mozilla prism http://wiki.mozilla.org/Prism
to run the pandora web site as a desktop app.

it's as cross platform as mozilla, chews up as
much cpu and memory as, say, firefox, and
works exactly like your website, including ads.

prism is a fairly easy download + install, so you
might even be able to package it with pandora.com
preloaded.

plus, you get free auto-update since it's just
using your website :)

if you really wanted a desktop app, then i suggest
trying to make the app do things that the website
cannot ever do, e.g., local caching of music and
radios and playlists so that i could listen to some
stuff even when offline. or is that not allowed by
your licenses? even in this scenario, prism folks
are working on better "offline" support for websites,
much like google gears or yahoo browserplus etc.

Love it! but Last.fm support would make this the bee's knees!!!!

Im sorry to be the first.. But, Im kinda disappointed.

Surely, you could come up with using the power of Adobe AIR to lay an ad on the screen every hour or something and the user would have to click ok or something to go back to the player(whatever song you were playing wouldn't stop though). So in turn you could reduce the size of the app and only show the player itself.. You could the app in half if they did that.

Right now im sorry to say it just looks like a webbrowser without a toolbar at the top.

On a positive note, Its great that you saw your users would love a standalone player without having to use the website. I applause you for your effort. I just think you can do better.

"If nothing else, it helps reduce the chance that I'll accidentally close the window mid stream."

Oh heck yeah. An AIR app is a great solution to this issue. Thanks! :)

Thanks for this!

I second the recommendation to provide keyboard controls without bring the app forward - similar functionality to SizzlingKeys for the Mac!

Design/ad suggestion: Do a horizontal banner rather than vertical, make it shorter in height. Give it aesthetics like Twitterific.

Does the desktop app integrate the apple remote like pandoraboy? That is the one big thing pandoraboy got right that keeps me from using other sevices.

Tom, I'll tell you what to do:

Work with the PandoraBoy developer and the contact Sophie (http://sophiestication.de/), the developer of CoverSutra (http://coversutra.com/), and work with her to figure out how to get the current playing track into a desktop album cover, like so:

http://coversutra.com/i/screenshot5.png

For non-Pandora subscribers, throw in a small ad next to the album cover; for subscribers, show none.

Alternatively, let me click on the album cover to reveal the additional artist, with links to albums for purchase etc and large, full size banners.

Point is, with a more native-like experience, and moving the ads into a place where they're relevant/providing value, I think a better compromise would appeal to a wider audience (and be better than Pandora being hidden in a tab where the ads are *never* seen!

This application has made my day- no more browser cluttering!

Some improvements:

1. having a bar that appears on the taskbar which displays the song playing, the play/pause button, and the volume adjust
2. play/pause button on the taskbar (see #1) respond to a keyboard shortcut (spacebar for instance)

2. when you click the Pandora icon to open the browser, the browser should pop up over other windows
3. when you have the Pandora browser open, it should automatically minimize when you click on the taskbar icon again

Great work! Keep it up!

So, what did you guys do to circumvent the windows flash player shutting down on minimize after the buffer clears? I wrote my own AIR Desktop port of Pandora a month or so ago and had to jump through some hoops to make that work.

!!! This is so exciting, I can't wait to get home to download it to my Mac. Thank you for all you do, Pandora team!

I'm liking the AIR app, if for no other reason than it doesn't spawn a new browser window when I bookmark a site.

It's a nice first step, I'll be interested to see what you add it it

John

I subscribed to Pandora after listening for 2 weeks on the ad supported version. Considering the value that Pandora delivers for the subscription you might consider asking your subscribers if they would object to having perhaps a smaller number or frequency of ads displayed. Let’s be honest, most people are not looking at the screen anyway. Another suggestion, I’ve probably bought more music for my iTouch from Amazon (mp3 downloads) after having my Pandora subscription than I ever did before. Why don’t you cut a deal with Amazon or some other download service to get a cut of the music your subscribers purchase? Pandora has to be the most kick ass music application out there.

No Pandora Desktop for Linux? Sad times as I prepare to delete the Windows partition from my computer.

Thanks so much for all your comments and suggestions!

We're reading everything, and we love getting your input.

Here's where you can email us directly, with any and all of your thoughts on this new app:
beta-feedback@pandora.com

:) Lucia, from Pandora

Please push out a version for Linux!!!!! This would be very valuable! In the spirit of open source....

Other than that, nice work!

But, on a Linux machine.....please..... (Oh I already said that)

Come on already and get Pandora approved for international use! Last.fm and thesixtyone are catching up with not only more widely available platforms but on-demand music, instead of a restricted use "wheel of fortune hope you like this song too" deal.

Thank you so much this! I have 100 stations and now fast access to them all! Quick access to "create station" is cool because I am often browsing around and I hear about a new band and I want to quickly see if you guys have them in your library yet.

I can't tell you how often I am jamming and accidentally close my Pandora tab. No more!

I second the request for a linux (kubuntu 8.04) version... other than that... I think that it is an excellent product...keep up the good work. I'm a fan.

This is really cool, works great for me.

Sorry guys, but getting it to run in AIR isn't going to give you differentiation from the web, particularly when it... looks like the web. I'd be prototyping alternatives to the "here's a webpage in an AIR window". Not that this isn't good work... I just think you're going to have to rethink the form factor and entire layout if you want a desktop app the folks will use, regardless of platform.

Thanks for all the awesome work you do, and good luck on improving on this riff, as I'm sure you will!

Oh - and an app for iPhone would be a killer app for you if you could figure out how to monetize it... full screen ads maybe?

Ok, this thing is really, really cool. I love it except for one point.

What's with the 'No choice of usernames'? I am stuck with a friggin number after my user name. 'mullins72' ? seriously that is really dumb. It may seem petty but as an X'er it's a deal breaker, especially since I have internet radio on my WinAmp. I love adobe products and have a bunch of their stuff. But 1. it is WAY expensive and now I have a second to add to my list. No personalization. I mean hell I can get better than this from a MySpace page, and I hate them.

Sorry, just had to add my disappointment.

I've been a Pandora user for years and love it. But creating an Adobe Air window that just points to a web page is not what I was expecting at all. Very disappointed, this is NOT a desktop app.

At first, I did not have a big desire to try this apart from the browser...

it took me a while to realize that this delivery method feels very natural (for the more part) when already using the computer. I'll leave my objections to not having control over specific songs out of this as I know that's the way pandora is.

Some additional features I'd like to see are:
a setup window to allow control of the play back without having to using the mouse of see the window. basic functions would be play/pause, volume up/down, next/prev station, and perhaps make new station from this song.

My perspective comes from using winamp which I control via a keyboard plugin.

Hey, thanks for making the beta public. Good luck with development.

I like but could you cut down on the size..maybe just make it player like the other 3rd party pandora player open pandora...

Great idea on desktop version. Can't speak to licensing costs, but to save on bandwidth - what about allowing Pandora Desktop users to keep an encrypted cache of songs? A client would only need to receive the song once.

With this cache, we could also send songs to other Pandora Desktop users. I could help upload a full song that would play later in the playlist.

um, is it possible to use the desktop app outside the US of you-know-where? like that place with the hockey pucks and mounties and stuff?

like, up here, where i used to love using pandora (and turned a lot of people on to it)...

thought i'd check before attempting the d/l.

thanks,

steve

Could you put in big red letters, that use of your application is restricted to US users only? Could save me some time and a disappointment.

Is there any chance you'll be adding any foreign music? Like Asian music? Or are you just working on domestic stuff?

thanks for this! One small suggestion:

Show the title and artist in a balloon on mouseover of the Pandora icon in the tray.

I would like to use this, but it crashes on both of my Windows PCs. Hope the team fixes this issue.

Any plans on making Pandora available on Windows Mobile devices?

I know Adobe Air isn't available on Windows Mobile, but some of the underlying technologies are, so I was curious if there was an available migration path.

I'd love to be able to access Pandora from my Motorola Q9C

Congrats on the beta release. One thing that I think would help this feel more like a desktop application would be to include a "Preferences" menu with options for:

--1) A balloon with title and artist info that pops up when new track starts (5-10 sec. duration).

--2) Mousing over [P] icon will also pop up this info with interactive thumbs up/down or zzz options.

--3) Local caching for 1-2 hours of the most played station for laptops users (not sure if this one is legal but it would be nice).

I think these should all be options that could be enabled/disabled by the user as some people find pop-ups annoying. I also would like to see a Linux release for this when Adobe AIR for linux is out of the alpha stage.

Good Job

I love the new application, but I am having some problems.

When using my Macbook Pro, Pandora seems to "skip" or pause for a split second- but only when using the wireless, not when hardwired, so it obviously something with my wireless on my Macbook Pro. This happens with Pandora, this application, and radio.msn.com

Does anyone have any thoughts? My apologies if this isn't the place for this. packmanxxxi@yahoo.com

I love it!!...Screens a bit too large, but I can live with it ;

Right in the middle of my music, BAM, some super-loud voice ad for Bose speakers. So long, Pandora...

I'd like to see a Linux version, too. I just transitioned to Linux and this is sorely lacking.

First off, I have completely stopped listening to cd's and radio since I discovered Pandora. It's totally amazing and I am so glad a friend linked me.

Now, I love this desktop app. The fact that it minimizes to the tray so I CANT close it on accident makes my day.

I agree with some previous comments on the thumbs up/thumbs down on the right click menu and the mouse-over track info. However, just its current functionality means I will most likely not be signing into the website except at work.

The only problem with it that I have seen is that occasionally it will experience a problem and need to close when I right click on the tray icon. It's happened maybe 5 out of 20 times I've done so.

I'm very excited by the standalone app I want one every time I accidentally close the browser window with Pandora in it. I listen all day at work, so this is great.

I would like to see a slimmer, more suave implementation of the Pandora app in the future. Something that sits in the tray/dock and pops up ads in an overlay window or even actually changes the desktop background to an ad. All controls could in a context menu by clicking the icon in the dock/tray and there could even be hot key shortcuts for play/pause, next, thumbs up/down which would work from any program. That would be ideal, I think.

One advantage of this app vs. running in the web browser is that it doesn't hog resources like it does when running in a Firefox tab for a long time. However I was really hoping this would connect to the Windows sound mixer so that Pandora would play through all my speakers. It's still only two-channel. Last.fm, on the other hand, can play through all my surround speakers (yes I realize this is not real surround sound). Has anyone figured out how to get Pandora to play through all speakers in Windows XP?

Hey guys - love Pandora - avid listener and user. Very excited that a desktop app. is finally available. I've been wanting something like this for a long time.

Here's a few suggestions after using the program:
1. A great feature would be to add the Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down
option as part of the menu you right-click from the tray icon.

2. Also incorporating the Quick Mix as an option in the See All
Stations. Just makes it easier to customize your listening experience.

3. When you put your mouse over the tray icon a small screen or pop-up
could show a picture of the song you are listening to with its
pertinent information. Sometimes you hear a song, while surfing the
internet or working, but don't know the artist - this would be a quick
way to check on that information without having to backtrack to the
Pandora screen.

Just some suggestions!
Thanks for your work.

The only thing I would suggest please please please is Lastfm/audioscrobbler support.

another vote for a linux version. i understand that this app relies on adobe AIR which is still in beta for linux, but i just wanted to let you guys know that the demand is still there.

keep up the good work :)

I can't believe I was so slow to find this app, you guys need to advertise your inventions more. I really like it and it was a breeze to install.

However for some reason after I installed it I initially couldn't right click it to access the menu. It was only after I forced it to close and restart it did it work properly.

Any chance of adding a feature to make the shortcuts work without the app being on top of things? I would very much like to control it while I'm playing a game.

Great job!

Ugh. I got the very obnoxious Bose voice ad, too. I do understand that it costs money to run Pandora, but... jeez. That voice ad was REALLY jarring and unpleasant! I'd be glad to pay something to NOT have voice ads interrupting my enjoyment of the music!

Rebecca -

No problem. You can pay $3 a month to get Pandora with zero ads.

Enjoy!

Lucia, with Pandora

Nice start. I had been using OpenPandora for a little bit. It's nice, but unpolished. I have to say I'm kind of unhappy with your new desktop app here. It's way too big. I know you mentioned it's because you need space for ads, but why not only offer it to paid subscribers and have no ads? That way you'd be able to have it a lot smaller and only the player. Or for the free users, have an ad pop up from the task bar every few songs or so. Also, you guys should make a Windows Mobile app. I'd love to listen on my phone.

Please add support for hotkeys! I listen to Pandora while playing games, and unfortunately waiting 5-10 seconds for my monitor to switch out of fullscreen to pause a song is a bit of a problem. Otherwise, it's really nice. Even resizable - big T-UP to you guys for that. I guess I'll use it while running non-fullscreen apps for now.. better than keeping a browser window open.