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

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.

Great, finally an official program for this. Actually if I get something extra with this thing (such as more standalone player without the web page) I could start to be a paid user ^^.

Sadly without a Last.fm song submission built in this thing I won't be using it much, no matter how great this thing will get. (Using FireFox with a submitter plugin until then. Maybe someone has made/will make one for IE which works with this app.)

In addition I'd really love to get a better way to sample my recently listened songs, like the ones I've heard during the current sitting. I often get distracted if I play some game or even when I browse internet while istening and many songs can end up withot a thumb, this is why I end up sampling quite many songs at once. I hate to use browser to sample these new songs, there is really no need to load a full page for every song sample.

Maybe the bottom part of the player could switch to a clicked song when I click the CD cover on the upper side, then the bottom part could have a sample button for the song in question. Adding a recently played section in the bottom part of the player wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Actually I'd want to sample a whole thumb down list of many of my channels (I often forget to delete songs from the list if I move it to another channel) but there are sometimes over 100 songs on the list and it takes so freaking long time to sample all of those... a new "edit station" section in the bottom part of the player with "sample all" and "skip sample" button would fix my problem.

Now speaking of moving songs, I'd prefer a tick box asking if I want it to be thumbed down on the current station. I often move songs which still fit on the current station but would be better on other one. (I like to seperate my female and male fronted metal/hard rock bands, music often fits on the original channel also that's why I need to go delete the moved song from the thumbed down list after moving.)

Hopefully someone at Pandora reads this, took a while to write ^^. If someone does and has few seconds to comment on my ideas, please do. (I could always e-mail this... wondering if I should just to be sure...)

Oh and thanks SO much for everyone at Pandora your service is one of the most amazing things I've ever used, I don't even use anything else to listen music on my PC. (Ok still do listen some certain live sets on Digitally Imported once in a while, but that's all.)

Is there some way to get this thing to use FireFox instead of InternetExplorer? The submitter plugin called "LastFM" might work if I get this thing to use FireFox. If that isn't possible yet it'd be really great feature.

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions, Sami!

Any time you'd like to send more, you can contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com.

Thanks!

Lucia, from Pandora

It'd be awesome if I could skip or pause/play using the buttons on my keyboard.
Also if you could make a version for the Windows Vista Sidebar.

Hi Ilya -

We do, in fact, have keyboard shortcuts for the desktop app:

Play/Pause: spacebar
Skip Song: right-arrow key

"Thumbs Up" - I like this song: plus key
"Thumbs Down" - I don't like this song: minus key

Increase Volume: up-arrow key
Decrease Volume: down-arrow key
Maximum Volume: shift key and up-arrow key combination
Mute Volume: shift key and down-arrow key combination

[Note: Be sure to have the Pandora Tuner active in order to use these shortcuts (just click the mouse pointer once on the Pandora Tuner).]

And thanks for the Vista request!

- Lucia, from Pandora

Currently Pandora seems to use a flash based player which limits the audio to be heard only on stereo mode. I believe this is a flash issue. I have a 5.1 setup where in I have a front, rear and center speakers connected to my laptop and the sound is only limited to front and center speakers. There is no output on the rear speakers. Most media players which stream internet radio can be heard in a 5.1 surround sound environment. Having a pandora desktop which probably uses the core OS features instead of using a common platform like Flash can really make a lot of difference and give the user a better listening experience.

I had really high hopes that the Pandora standalone application would play through all of my speakers. So I excitedly downloaded and installed it to find the same result, no sound out of the rear speakers.

I would like to echo Mark's point, that the Pandora standalone application SHOULD play through all of my speakers. I've got a media center pc setup and most windows applications play through all of the speakers just fine. For some reason, my favorite service (Pandora) does not. Any assistance or guidance as to making this work toward a better listening experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your comments and questions, guys. Our Support team tells me they've followed up with you via email.

If you have any further questions don't hesitate to email: panodra-support@pandora.com.

Thanks!
Lucia

Thanks for the offering guys. You made a great beta, but it just ate up too much resources on my MacBook. I usually operate sans power plug so I just couldn't afford to have it running. I hope Adobe can get you a slimmer build of AIR to help get it back down.

Thanks.

-DB

This is a little off topic, but is there an itunes plugin out there or any hope of one. I'd like to shuffle between my music and some new music.

Probably been mentioned before, but if there could be a rate song option on the right click menu in the taskbar that would re really useful.

Hi,
I've been using Pandora desktop for several weeks on a Macbook Pro Intel running Leopard (latest build). I love the software but I'm seeing an issue with CPU usage. Activity Monitor shows Pandora Desktop using between 106% and 113% CPU (fans spin madly.) Compare this to Pandora in a Safari window which only uses around 26% CPU. Has anyone else had this problem?

Another bug I found is that you claim the product is shaped like the normal pandora, yet I am not seeing any advertiesments which defeats the purpose of keeping it shaped this way, and is probably hurting your ad fundings. Just wanted to let you know

Thanks for all the feedback. This was an experiment, presented warts and all, and we appreciate the feedback we've gotten. We were interested in exploring this product and we may go down this road again in the future but for now that is all. Thanks folks!

-A

For every one that would like to use this in linux go to http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/linux/ and install adobe AIR Beta and then goto http://www.pandora.com/desktop and install pandora desktop (open with Adobe AIR application installer). It will put an icon on your desktop. working in openSuse 11.0 with KDE 3.5.10

I seem to have a problem with displaying pop-up windows from the AIR app (on Windows Vista). When I click to get more details on a song, album, artist, or for station details, it should cause a pop-up to appear. This works fine for me when I run Pandora from a web browser, but fails when I do it from the AIR app. And I've had little luck with trying to find a way to configure the AIR runtime, as it doesn't seem to provide any means of doing so (unless I'm missing it).

I'm also looking into seeing if I can fix this by messing with the Flash player sandbox settings, though I could be barking up the wrong tree by trying that. I profess to a certain lack of understanding of the underlying architecture of Flash and AIR.

Anyway, is this a problem anyone else has encountered, or is it more likely caused by peculiarities in my own configs? I'd be grateful for any pointers.

I'm going to second Paul DeLong's complaint about the inability to display popups when running Pandora Desktop under Windows Vista (64 bit Ultimate in my case). Pandora.com is explicitly allowed under both Firefox 3 and IE7 browsers and popups display properly if I load Pandora in either. I too have tried configuring Flash Player sandbox settings with no luck.

Love the desktop but can't do without the popups.

I'll echo the comment from both Paul and Craig immediately above. I've got the AIR app running great on my Linux desktop (CentOS 5.2), but it can't display any popups. I can't view any "more info" windows, which is pretty frustrating.

I love having a separate app outside of my browser, but I really wish it could spawn browser windows when I ask it to.

This Air app works wonderfully, but I can't help thinking it's holding pandora back a bit. I believe you should really take a look at the Pandora Vista sidebar Gadget. you could easily take advantage of the google gadgets engine, it usually keeps resource demand and usage very low, and it seems to be very fluid to use. Also, the bottom of the Vista gadget has this huge Vista ad on it, you could easily replace this with a small advertisement, thus taking care of your pesky income issue.

Also, if you make sure it uses your browser to play music, it should stay entirely platform independant, meaning anyone, regardless of OS, can run it. So more people can see that little ad at the bottom and make you money! plus it means more people can actually USE it without having to worry about accidentally closing out their browser tab.

Since google gadgets can be used on other sidebar apps, like OSX's dock, or vista's sidebar, or linux's screenlets, not just google-gadgets, it means you really get the chance to be truly cross-platform. And you wont have to worry about fixing whatever is wrong with the mac version of the Air app.

I would like to see integration with the Play/Pause buttons on my Mac keyboard as well as Growl notifications.

I also have 64-bit Vista, and the pop-ups don't work. This is my biggest complaint to far.

I've got a solution for folks looking for hotkey support on Windows. There is a little app you can grab called AutoHotKey. This app allows you to actually automate most applications with a variety of inputs. You can grab it from http://www.autohotkey.com/. I've posted the instructions on my blog at http://groggluebutt.blogspot.com/2009/02/official-pandora-desktop-and-hotkey.html.

I hope the Pandora gods don't smack me for link-posting. :D

I was excited to download this app, but ouch, 92% CPU usage is much "more CPU intesive than we'd like it to be"

Quick question/thoughts from an office management perspective...

We have numerous employees whom enjoy using Pandora to listen to music while at work. However, our IT department had stated we were using up a large amount of bandwidth going towards the usage of Pandora. What kind of decreases in bandwidth are we talking about between the flash version and the desktop client? I saw a general statement of taking advantage of a high quality/low resources codec, however I was hoping there might be a hard figure I could bring to our IT department and once again bring happiness to all of our worker bees. :)

I apologize if this is stated all ready, but I am at work and could only devote a couple of moments to reading everything that has been posted! Thank you!

@Thomas--I've forwarded your message to a tech-er person in the crew. They should be getting back to you soon.

-A

It would be great if you add the "I like this song (Thumbs Up) and I don't like this song (Thumbs Down) to the right click menu of the minimized Pandora air application.

One request. For us PC media center users who are doing their best to ditch the keyboard/mouse combo having to make the Pandora playbar active by using the mouse only (ie. tab doesn't get you there) is a real deal breaker. Right now I can use last.fm desktop shortcut keys by using tab instead of using the mouse so they are winning out. Thanks in advance.

I got sick of the popup problem with the AIR app. I found this instead and it seems to work well and it takes up a lot less space. Popups work as well.

Also, the OpenPandora app also supports the other requests such as right click menu thumbs up, thumbs down. It also works with keyboard media keys.

i love pandora.the best

This app is really great, I been using this on Linux, it works great on Ubuntu 8.10 as long as you install the Air for Linux! You should add linux to the list of supported operating systems!

Thanks AGAIN!

Installed the app without problem in AIR.

CPU usage is around 30-40% on my Mac Book Pro Core 2 Duo with 4GB of ram.

This is actually using less resources than if I were to have it running in a new window in FireFox... which always seems to creep up on me and use like 50-70% of the cpu.

I will continue to try this out and let you know if it interferes with any cpu/memory intensive programs. (which it hasn't so far)

I love you.

One issue I had with this app is it's memory usage. It takes up just as much memory as firefox uses by itself, at least on my computer. Because of that fact, it'd be better for me to run Pandora in my web browser(firefox) than to run it in a separate app. It'd be really great to see some improvements in how it handles system memory.

What about a Google Gadget for the Google Desktop Sidebar. It seems that since it is open source and widely distributal it would be a good choice especially in terms of advertising (maybe, honestly im kind of just speculating, I dont really know the ins & outs).

This is really cool. Obviously I would rather it not look exactly like the site but it works. One bug I hit is that when I try to buy a song the "Disable Popup Blocker" message comes up. I too agree that iTunes integration would be cool and to, like iTunes, have the controls accessible when the application is minimized.

I also like the Adobe Air application, but I, too, cannot bypass the popup blocker message. I have tried changing my default browser, disabling popups, and restarting my computer. Nada. Unfortunately, this means that I cannot follow links to songs to buy from iTunes or Amazon MP3 when using the Adobe Air version of Pandora. I still buy songs, but I have to search for them manually. I'm going to make a guess that this means Pandora doesn't get any referral revenue from my purchases... It's annoying to me, and probably financially damaging to Pandora.

UGH! Has this project been abandoned? Why can't the pop-up issue be fixed?

It'd be a semi-decent alternative to using Pandora through a browser if pop-ups would just freaking work.

Also... WHY ARE THERE NO ADS? Isn't that the whole freaking point of it being this big and sacrificing usability? Don't you want money?

Also, if you'd make a small, mini-player without ads available I'd happily become a subscriber... as I'm sure lots others would too. Once again: DON'T YOU WANT MONEY!?

o.O;

I love Pandora but this is really confusing for me.

Hi Matthew,

Yeah, this version of the desktop application was pretty much a failed experiment. We learned a lot though and just today launched a totally new desktop player that is part of our Pandora One subscription offering. Learn all about Pandora One here:

http://www.pandora.com/pandora_one

and the new destkop app here:

http://www.pandora.com/desktop_app

I really like the release of this new Pandora desktop. I appreciate all the work that went into making an application for multiple OS support, to stream random music selections.

My one question or maybe suggestion is, here at our business we have XM playing to our internal speaker systems throughout our building, and we hate it. It is choppy and the system for it is bulky, and has a single point of configuration for changing stations.

Does Pandora have a road map for building a Pandora for Business Desktop application, that would be a larger fee, yet have a better pause timeout? It would be nice if you had an application you could set to only stream for business hours (7-7), and then the stream would turn off. This would then allow our CEO / Execs the control of what music we have playing, lets be honest that is the highlight of their day, but also allows for Pandora to put in a type of Parental controls on which type of songs would be played and a larger fee to charge (XM $135 a year). We don't really care about bandwidth utilization.

Suggestion: Pandora Box... A small Asic with a network interface, a management app and a 3.5 headset jack, that just does Pandora radio.

Thanks again for this desktop app, it is a step in the right direction.

-Con

I wish that the new Pandora|One app could be hidden by closing the window. The previous version of Pandora desktop allowed me to close the window but keep Pandora playing. I am wishing I wouldn't have downloaded this new version as I find it annoying to have it up in my taskbar the whole day. Just a suggestion for the next version - perhaps you could work that functionality back into the app.

Thanks!

Hilary you actually can play the new player "closed." Just use the close button to close the player, it will still be running in your notification area in your taskbar, but will be paused. All you have to do is right click on the Pandora icon and hit play. Kind of an bass ackwards way of doing it, but it can be done. The guys at Pandora just need to make it so it does not pause on "close". Also make sure you have the "Always display in taskbar tray" option seleted in the preferences of the desktop app.

yeah, that's really lame actually. The desktop app used to be free.

Well for everyone wanting a linux version, just try to install it on linux, install adobie air then download the pandora.air file and try to install it. (you have have the old pandora desktop installed, remove the pandora folder from /opt and then remove the dpkg reference from it (http://eatthepath.com/2009/05/29/installing-pandora-under-ubuntu-linux/)

I've used this for months without a problem. Starting this week though I've had problems. Anytime I click play, skip or pause in the Player it opens a web browser and opens Pandora there. Its ends up on the right station, but it plays two songs: one on the app and the other on the browser. What's up?

this sucks this used to be free i want the free one why should i have to upgrade a free service just to get a desktop app

Just like Justin - I thought this app was great until recently where now clicking to learn more about the artist, it tells me that my pop ups are blocked (they are not) or if I click to vote on a song it opens another instance of Pandora through the web browser. I wonder if this was this a function of the Safari update to version 4? I'm also disappointed that we have to subscribe for the new app.

I tried Pandoraboy, but it didn't provide the artist info (or not that I saw) and you could not resize the window.

Is the Pause on Close (minimize to tray) a feature or a Bug? I don't want to have to go to the tray icon, right click and click play every time I close the window.

I'd add to the cacophony of requests for a Linux version. I am a paying Pandora One customer who uses Linux exclusively. Thanks!

1. Hotkeys that work anywhere (not just when the app has focus).
2. Integration with keyboard media keys.
3. Volume control that works with one click instead of three! (#2 would answer the need.)
4. Vote for Linux version.
5. Vote for Pandora support of G1 Android phone.
Thank you.

Still waiting on media keyboard shortcuts. If this is a limitation of AIR, then perhaps using AIR as a platform for the premium desktop client is a mistake. OpenPandora (Windows) supports media keys, and PandoraBoy (Mac) supports customizable global keyboard shortcuts and the Apple remote. Both are free apps.

Any new versions of Pandora One, yet?

This application isn't SUPPOSED to give you more features than what you'd get running Pandora in a web browser; it's merely supposed to provide a means of running the player in a standalone fashion.

i've installed the pandora desktop app on my teaching computer (so I have access to nothing), it's installed, but I can't open it since I can't find it. I need a way to open it without being able to get to it. I can't uninstall it and reinstall in a location where I can get to.

I should have installed in my docs instead of c drive where I can't get to.

Any ideas?

@ben james
It sounds like you'll need your network administrator to uninstall the application for you, before you can reinstall it in a more suitable location.

One very cool feature for Pandora Desktop would be if you could control it from the iPhone ala Apple remote with iTunes. I've got a Dell Zino with speakers as my MP3 jukebox. With Pandora Desktop installed and an iPhone remote it would blow my mind.

Salute everybody, I am new to this website, I have just subscribed and the webpage looks awesome. I am quite tech savy so I will be more then happy to help if any person has any tech-related issues. Anyway, I am a first time visitor who hopes to become a everyday visitor :)

Much obliged
Tootendeace