Blog: Pandora One: Upgrade the Pandora Experience

« Tim answers Viewer Mail, #8 | Main | Announcing Pandora for Palm Pre »

May 19, 2009

Pandora One: Upgrade the Pandora Experience

desktop.jpg

When you start building something like Pandora you quickly realize there's going to be a bunch of things that you'd love to do from day one that will have to wait for a later date. We have a long list like that and one staple of that list for the last 4 years has been an upgraded version of Pandora for listeners who want more features, better audio quality, and other things that we just can't do in the advertising-supported free version of the product. Well, the day has finally come when we can cross this one off our list.

Introducing Pandora One.

For $36/year we'll upgrade you and enhance your experience with these new features:

* High Quality Streaming: When listening on the web, experience 192K bits per second audio. That's the highest quality streaming experience on the Internet. More bits means better sounding music.

* Pandora One Desktop: Listen to Pandora from a dedicated desktop application; no need to keep a browser window open. Control playback from the Windows taskbar or the Macintosh dock. Get popup alerts when a new song starts to play. This is the ultimate Pandora experience: simple, efficient, pure.

* No Ads: Pandora One is completely free of any sort of advertising: no audio ads, no visual ads. It's just you and your music.

* Personalize Your Look: Surround the Pandora player with one of 8 custom "skins" that will make the look of Pandora as personalized as the music.

* Mini Player: Minimize Pandora One into the smallest possible browser window. This makes it easy for the web version of Pandora to live side by side with other web sites and applications.

* Skip All Day Long: With the standard ad supported version of Pandora you're limited to 12 total skips per day. With Pandora One you'll be able to skip as many times per day as you'd like (note you will still be limited, thanks to licensing constraints, to six skips per hour).

* Extended Interaction Timeout: Listen for up to 5 hours in a row without interacting with Pandora at all. Just turn it on and let it go. Every time you interact the timer is reset so just one click around lunchtime can get you through an entire workday.

So that's Pandora One. The highest quality audio. Pandora One Desktop. No Ads. More features. No limits. As with everything we do, we're very interested in hearing your feedback. Drop us an email or a comment here to share your thoughts. Your feedback will help shape future versions of Pandora One. This is just the beginning.

Tom
CTO @ Pandora

PS: If you had previously subscribed to Pandora to avoid advertising, we've upgraded your account to Pandora One status for free. Welcome!

Posted by Tom Conrad at May 19, 2009 6:55 PM

Comments

Well, that seems to be it.
Pandora bites the dust.

I'm on Linux. Means, that even if I want I can't buy the app. But I don't want to. 12 skips per day is horrible with the amount of modern crap being fed into my 60s stations, without the option of preventing ban and thumbdown list merge. Not mentioning that listening to new songs becomes impossible.

Pandora, when will you learn, that making people suffer is not a way to prompt them pay you money?

R.

Posted by: Roman at May 20, 2009 12:54 AM

Hi Roman,

The Pandora One desktop app will run on Linux. We've successful had it running on KDE4.1/AMD64 Linux as well as Debian unstable and Ubuntu 9.04. Because of all of the flavors of Linux out there it's not something we formally support, but I can personally tell you that in many cases it will work.

Sounds on the other hand like we're really letting you down on your 60's stations. You certainly shouldn't have to "suffer through" modern crap on a station you want to play 60's music. We'll keep working on the playlist algorithm; that's what we do. We are the first to admit though that we don't always get it right today.

The last thing we want to do is to make you suffer... the ad supported free version of Pandora will always be the way 95% or more of our listeners experience Pandora and we want that experience to be the very best it can possibly be. The trick with skipping is that we pay licensing royalties for each and every song we play. Even if we play just one second of the song, we play the full royalty. That means that the very small minority of our listeners that skip more than twelve times a day (and it's a tiny, tiny percentage) drive our royalty rates up and up. Sadly we just can't serve enough ads in that scenario to make the ad supported free model work. So, for the small group that wants unlimited daily skips we ask that you subscribe. We hope that's a fair value exchange. Our only goal in this is to ensure that we can afford to keep available in all it's forms for years to come.

Tom
CTO @ Pandora

Posted by: Tom Conrad at May 20, 2009 1:16 AM

The desktop app is absolutely gorgeous, you guys have really hit this one out of the park. I'm so glad that Pandora is no longer tied down to my web browser (which with 20+ tabs is often prone to hang/crash and so, screw with Pandora)

Posted by: Arvind Satyanarayan at May 20, 2009 1:38 AM

Thanks for the quick response.

I run a Fedora Linux; I am not sure your application
will run, and what I miss most is a trial version. It may be even with a preset royalty-free playlist, just to check that the application WILL work before I pay the money.

As for the skips, I understand the license issue, but understand my point too:
* Without the skips (mostly sleeps in my case) and a with severe thumbing both ways, Pandora gets stuck on a list of about 1500 songs at maximum, introducing about 5-7 new songs daily at most.
* The lists of thumbed stuff are unmanageable and unmergeable. Inability to set temporal filters worsens the problem.

I would like to suggest an alternative for free users:
Present a "Coming next" list with the next four songs you're about to play.
Allow the user to sleep/skip/thumbdown the songs in advance. Then you won't have to play that 'second of the song' you pay the royalty for and we'll keep our playlists neat and clean.

Posted by: Roman at May 20, 2009 1:42 AM

Roman,

I love your alternative solution for free users, unfortunately the Internet radio licenses under which we operate explicitly forbid us from pre-announcing upcoming songs names (or even artist/album names). Another area where the licensing terms keep us from being able to do what we'd like. Very frustrating for us too.

Understand your points with respect to variety and thumb management on Pandora. We're working on both and understand that to varying degrees they are a real issue with our current offering. We're not standing still on these issues and thanks for taking time to articulate the particulars of what you're frustrated by.

Tom

Posted by: Tom Conrad at May 20, 2009 1:53 AM

I see. A revolution and putting RIAA against the wall is due.

What about the ability to try the application before having to pay for subscription?

Posted by: Roman at May 20, 2009 2:03 AM

Roman,

I personally really like the idea of a demo version of the desktop application. Something for us to ponder for a future release.

Tom

Posted by: Tom Conrad at May 20, 2009 2:16 AM

Is it possible to use Pandora One without the desktop app? I also run Linux, and I'm happy with the browser method, since during any given day I may want to listen to music on 3 different computers. I don't want to install new applications each time I change.

Also, I use the beta BlackBerry application. How does that interact with One?

Posted by: Carl at May 20, 2009 4:26 AM

Can I install Pandora One on multiple computers? (Work, Home Desktop, Home Laptops, etc)

Posted by: Steve at May 20, 2009 5:00 AM

Tom, downloaded the desktop app, very slick. Good job.
Being one of those people that uses the 'hide taskbar' in windows. How are we supposed to skip songs, or thumbs up/down etc, without sight of the taskbar? I thinkg it would be useful for the x seconds that the next track popup overlays the screen to include the > arrows, likewise the thumbs up/down?

Posted by: Terry at May 20, 2009 5:14 AM

So the Mini Player that used to be a available to all users now requires a subscription to use?
That doesn't quite fit the "bunch of things that you'd love to do from day one that will have to wait for a later date" label seeing as it's been an option for at least a year already.

Posted by: Greg at May 20, 2009 5:30 AM

Someone ought to capture the email exchange (above) between CTO Tom Conrad & Roman. It's a thing of beauty: The customer starts off incredibly disgruntled, but is very articulate about what's annoying him. The CTO replies respectfully & with useful information. Customer comes back with sensible recommendations for improvements. CTO points out legal hurdles. Customer suggests maybe he'd consider trying the new application if there was a trial period. CTO says he'll consider it. ... I rarely use Pandora, but I found this exchange inspiring. No kidding. Thanks.

Posted by: Alan M. at May 20, 2009 6:21 AM

Hi,

I had been a Pandora user once upon a time when it was available worldwide. Any chance I can access Pandora by subscribing to Pandora One?


From India,
Gubbi.

Posted by: Gubbi at May 20, 2009 6:33 AM

Hi - I like the desktop app and the sound quality is fab. It would be good to have a "sort by genre" function similar to the full player to make the full list of stations easier to navigate, but maybe that's getting too complicated for a mini player.
Cheers,
Jon

Posted by: Jon at May 20, 2009 6:43 AM

Any update for UK (wannabe) listeners?

Posted by: Norman Creaney at May 20, 2009 7:11 AM

The hours and hours of countless entertainment my colleague and I get from Pandora is priceless. There's just no way I can possibly not pay you for all the laughter and happiness you've brought into our lives. I'll be purchasing Pandora One very soon. Keep the innovations coming. You get Pandora on my G1 and I'll never look at another radio again. =D

Posted by: Jen at May 20, 2009 7:18 AM

I was content with the pop-out player on the main page. Sadly, that feature appears to have been removed. Thank you and goodbye.

Posted by: Daniel at May 20, 2009 7:29 AM

Now that is a paid service... doesn't it fit in a different category somehow that is possible to open the service to users outside the US?

Posted by: Mestafais at May 20, 2009 7:35 AM

I live in Canada. I used to pay for your no adverts account, years ago. This sounds excellent, and as soon as you work out the legalese, I hope to be able to use it here :)

Posted by: Gareth Lewin at May 20, 2009 7:43 AM

Hello. I'm trying to run it in Ubuntu. I've installed Air and the Pandora Air app successfully, but I don't know what to do after that to make it run?

Posted by: Danny at May 20, 2009 7:46 AM

Thanks, Pandora team! I'm delighted to pay the subscription fee for these great features.

Let me be the first to bite the hand that feeds me with a few nit-picks. The desktop app is beautiful, but I was expecting a few standard things that I don't see:

1.) Media key support: Maybe the app already has this, and my rubbish Microsoft keyboard isn't doing it right. But if not: One of the big wins with a desktop app should be OS interoperability, and that certainly includes the use of media keys!

This was always one of my biggest gripes with Pandora. It doesn't even need to specifically be "Media key" support--just some form of hotkey support. It would be great to pause & skip without having to navigate to the app.

2.) "Minimize to tray": Pretty much every media player out there will automatically remove its taskbar button and exist solely in the tray when you minimize it. This reduces clutter a hundredfold. Most apps will toggle between restored/minimized when you click on the tray icon. I was confused, because this *seemed* to be the case when I first started the app, but I couldn't get the taskbar button to disappear again!

3.) Song info on hover: You ought to get the song info when you hover over the tray icon, instead of just "Pandora". I know it's Pandora! What am I listening to? :-]

Like I said, these are tiny nitpicks, but the devil is in the details. With the subtle changes like the three I listed above, I feel that the desktop app would truly be a 10/10.

Oh, there is one other thing that I'd love to have, but is certainly not an "expected standard". Right now I use the Firefox LastFM extension to "scrobble" my Pandora tracks to my last.fm profile. I know... EVERYONE does that, right? If you guys ever have the time to cater to my slim "pedantic power-user" demographic, it would be great to have last.fm support for the desktop app. I think it's something the last.fm client guys could take care of, too, but they seem reluctant to add support for more players than their current list.

It's too pad you guys struggle with your licensing issues so much. I'd be interested to know the details, just out of curiosity--is this kind of information publicly available in the form of laws & standards, or is it a private contract you have with a single distributor?

Thanks so much for your time. Pandora regularly makes my day, and I evangelize it everywhere I go. I wish I could help more than just the subscription fee!

Posted by: Max at May 20, 2009 8:07 AM

So, with the debut of Pandora One, the "standard" pop-out mini player is gone? Bad form.

Posted by: Steve at May 20, 2009 8:16 AM

@carl -- yes, Pandora one works great from a regular browser. You get 192Kbps streaming, a new set of skins, unlimited daily skips, and the web miniplayer.

@steve -- yes you can install Pandora One Desktop on more than one computer. One caveat: Pandora assumes that a single account is only be used in one location at a time. Our playlist quality will degrade for you will degrade if you have Pandora playing from two locations at once.

@terry -- if you minimize your taskbar, you can always use the control buttons in the desktop app window itself. Like the idea of a few few subtle buttons in the pop song notification window. We'll take a look at that for a future version.

@greg, @daniel -- sorry you're missing the "mini player" in the free web version. The reality is that we simply couldn't get advertisers interested in paying to advertise in that small format player. It was a consistent money loser for us in the ad supported mode. I *hate* taking features away but in the interest of ensuring that Pandora will be around for many, many years to come we have to deliver the product in a form that allows us to recoup our licensing costs. In the case of the mini player it got to the point where we simply had to make it a subscription only option.

@Mestafais, @Gareth -- sadly the licensing issues we face outside of the US aren't resolved by the subscription/free dimension. We're still working on sorting out international access, but it's slow going.

@Danny -- drop us a note at support@pandora.com and we'll see what we can do to get you up and running under Ubuntu.

Posted by: Tom Conrad at May 20, 2009 8:21 AM

Oh, one more thing: You folks should definitely consider a "Gift" interface for buying someone else a subscription. If you already have one, make it easier to find!

Posted by: Max at May 20, 2009 8:25 AM

Will this player be keychain-usable? Many of us listen to Pandora at work, where applications cannot be isntalled on the workstation.

Posted by: Francis at May 20, 2009 8:41 AM

On thing I've come to love with Pandora is the mash-ups that let me scrobble my stuff to Last.fm (pandora-fm) and tweet a specific song on demand (dora.fm).

I assume Pandora One won't work with web-based mashups, so I hope that at some point you integrate built-in scrobbling and song-tweet capability.

You do that, you've got my subscription in the bag. For now, I'll likely stick with the web interface.

Posted by: Ryan Meray | ctechsinc.com at May 20, 2009 8:43 AM

@pandora_radio im on http://www.pandora.com/subscribe i don't see the lock or https when entering my cc info

Posted by: jazzimus at May 20, 2009 8:50 AM

Tom & Co,

Thanks for the upgraded features in Pandora One! Since I was already a paid subscriber, this is pretty much a free upgrade to me, an much appreciated. Can't wait to check out the upgraded bitrate once I'm somewhere I'm allowed to stream audio! :)

Of course, you didn't think all the great news was going to prevent us from pestering you further, right?

Does the stand alone app offer or bring us any closer to having an external control API for the Pandora service?

Thanks,
- Chip

Posted by: Chip at May 20, 2009 8:50 AM

I LOVE Pandora and these new features sound like nice improvements to the service... but still not enough to compel me to pay. sorry.

* I have no complaints about the free sound quality.

* I already have a desktop app that is basically just an embedded browser that allows me to position it and resize it to simulate a standalone, mini-player.

* I don't mind the occasional (2-3 a day) audio ads.

* I don't have a strong desire to "customize" an app that stays minimized 99% of the time.

* I rarely skip songs... 12 is plenty (if I don't want to hear it, I thumb it down).

* The "Extended Interaction Timeout" would be nice but not that big of a deal.

Posted by: the guy in the next cube at May 20, 2009 9:00 AM

I would have no problem paying for Pandora, IF it were billed monthly instead of annually. Shelling out $3/month makes me feel better than doing $36/year. I know, it's the same thing, but $3 a month would just feel better.

Posted by: Tim at May 20, 2009 9:06 AM

@Tom Conrad: I was missing the mini player this morning and the blog post didn't mention why it was removed. Thanks for the explanation!

Also, I second Max's "Gift" option.

Posted by: Phillip at May 20, 2009 9:23 AM

Happy to see this app. Any chance it supports or will support remote controls for media/hometheater PCs?

Posted by: Benjamin at May 20, 2009 9:37 AM

Oh! There's a link to the gift option on the front page. :)

http://www.pandora.com/station_gift

Posted by: Phillip at May 20, 2009 9:38 AM

Doh. Wrong kind of giving. That's for giving a station. My bad.

Posted by: Phillip at May 20, 2009 9:39 AM

I'm annoyed that you took away free features (the mini player) and stuffed them into the subscription mode. If you're going to offer subscription, have it ADD new stuff, not just reappropriate existing features and try to charge me for them.

Posted by: Quetzal at May 20, 2009 9:42 AM

build me an android client, and ill sign up that day.

Posted by: radio_babylon at May 20, 2009 10:15 AM

Will the new features work on the iPhone player?

Posted by: Jeff at May 20, 2009 10:25 AM

I've been a paying subscriber since the day I found Pandora a few years ago. $36/year is *nothing* compared to the joy of using Pandora. Don't care a whole lot about the new features (mostly listen on my iPhone), but I want you to continue to exist, so just do what you gotta do to be profitable! I really appreciate your transparency and amazing customer support. :)

Posted by: Kara Shallenberg at May 20, 2009 10:40 AM

Two more nitpicks of the desktop app: There's no song progress indicator, and when you're using QuickMix, there's no indicator of which station the song is coming from.

These are both important: Without a song progress indicator, I have less information to judge whether I want to skip a song. I try not to skip too much, because I know that you guys get hit by royalty fees, so if I'm not really digging a song, I'll stick it out if it's almost done. Without a progress bar, though, I may as well just skip it--the song could still have 20 minutes left!

Similarly, with no "real" station indicator in QuickMix, there's no way to know whether I should give something a thumbs up or down. If Hotel California comes up on my QuickMix, I would want to give it a thumbs up if it's coming from my 70's/80's station, but it would get a thumbs down if it came from my Metal Station. (Not that that's happened, but you get the idea.)

Posted by: Max at May 20, 2009 10:54 AM

@Francis--for workstation use, we recommend the mini player as it's unobtrusive and doesn't require downloading new software.

@Jazzimus--although the subscribe page isn't labeled as secure, it is in fact secure. Perusing the source code of the page reveals this. We'll get this glitch fixed soon enough. In the meantime, you can use this URL to allay any concern: https://www.pandora.com/subscribe

@Chip and Benjamin--nothing on these just yet, unfortunately! One thing at a time around here...

@Jeff--Pandora One listeners on the iPhone app will have the 5-hour time-out frequency, all day skips, and no advertising. All other features are web-only. But come on...the app is SO sweet already. :)

Thanks folks,
Alee (Listener Advocate)

Posted by: Alee - Listener Advocate at May 20, 2009 10:58 AM

The at&t Fuze has Pandora on it and requires a subscription of like $9 a month. Why does the iPhone get it for free? It turns out to be $108 a year. If I were to subscribe to Pandora One and have it on my Fuze I would be paying $144 a year for Pandora. (If someone has a decent collection already and buys an additional 10 songs a month for about $1 they would end up with more 'equity' at the end of that year).

I am not sure I completely understand some of these prices. I understand you are running a business and need to make money - but the way things are shifting around I am not sure I would want to pay into that system. (believe me I have no problems paying for a lot of different monthly subscriptions. I just don't like to feel ripped off)

Posted by: Jim at May 20, 2009 11:18 AM

So the pop out player has been removed? Not cool, Pandora. Not cool.

Posted by: Jared at May 20, 2009 11:21 AM

I like that you guys are moving to a subscription model to stay in business - it's what's hot right now.

However, I do have some suggestions:

- Right now your service comes to $3 / mo. I'd pay alot more than that if you could allow me to download x tracks per month in addition to the streaming music, similar to Napster or Zune subscription service.

- I haven't tried the new Napster subscription service, or the Zune service, but I'm assuming the big advantage you have over both of them is the algorithm that plays similar music based on user preference, which means more people might be interested in switching to your service if you did mimic that model.

Posted by: Travis at May 20, 2009 11:37 AM

I must echo many previous entries about your decision to remove the mini-player from the free service. It does seem like bad form to REMOVE features/functionality from the free version.

You have (or rather HAD) a good product - bring back the free mini-player or I can see many, many users just simply going elsewhere.

Posted by: Rick at May 20, 2009 11:43 AM

If only I could access Pandora One via the Nintendo Wii browser....

Posted by: Wesley at May 20, 2009 11:45 AM

I'm really disappointed that the miniplayer has been relegated to the paid subscriber side as an option. Unfortunately that means I'll be listening to Pandora significantly less often. Besides, I've been having extreme difficulty getting country music out of my Def Leppard station. Good luck Pandora.

Posted by: JD at May 20, 2009 12:17 PM

I'd like to request that the "brain" of the Pandora service be improved. For instance, I put in "Billy Holiday" and it plays Christmas music along with my Blues. It makes me seem a bit crazy when colleagues and students walk by my office in the middle of May to hear "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." LOL Surely this is a quick fix; a simple algorithm would solve the problem.

Thanks!

Posted by: Sheldon at May 20, 2009 12:24 PM

@JD--not sure why you're Def Leppard station puts out Country. It's possible that somewhere deep in Def Leppard's catalog, there's some Country in there OR it could be that something needs tweaking on our end! Try starting a station with Def Leppard songs as your seeds and see if that helps.

@Sheldon--this happens from time to time. Certain artists that have recorded Christmas songs have a separate tag for "Holiday". So when you type in Billy Holiday, the auto-complete shows you:

Billy Holiday
Billy Holiday (Holiday)

The bottom one will give you Christmas songs and you added that one by mistake! Just remove it from your station definition by clicking on "Edit station details" underneath the station name. Re-start and you the Xmas tunes should stop!

@Mike--thanks for all that feedback! It looks like folks are really digging into that app. Enjoy...

Cheers,
Alee

Posted by: Alee - Listener Advocate at May 20, 2009 12:47 PM

12 total skips per day? Ouch. I'm going to be doing a lot of station switching and refreshing.

Posted by: Tokio at May 20, 2009 12:50 PM

Just upgraded to Pandora One. The desktop APP is great! However, the music has been skipping all day. I hope this is just a temporary problem.

Any insight?

Posted by: Thomas at May 20, 2009 1:05 PM

I'd also like to have the higher quality (192) when used with Wifi on the iPhone app.

Posted by: Wesley at May 20, 2009 1:20 PM

WOW! I'm so glad I was turned on to your site. Since I forst logged on... a couple of days ago (unofficially), I feel like I've got my 101.9 back! THIS IS TERRIFIC!!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

Posted by: Night Hawk at May 20, 2009 1:33 PM

Hey, all, I love the new features in Pandora One and want you to know that I'll be dumping my four-year subscription to Live365 to switch over to Pandora One. :-) The new features were just enough to convince me to pay the $3/month. Plus, reading in the comments here that it'll work on the iPhone encourages me even more.

Just one suggestion: consider the TiVo as a possible platform for Pandora! :-)

Thanks for all the good work! You just won a customer.

Posted by: Mark at May 20, 2009 1:40 PM

Roman and other linux users: Standalone player works fine under Fedora 9 32-bit (Gnome).

Posted by: fincan at May 20, 2009 1:51 PM

I've been a paid subscriber for years to avoid the ads and didn't realize I also got a higher number of thumbs downs in the process. That's great to know.

I think its great that you gave so many details regarding the removal of the mini player. It makes sense to me, but then again I've been a subscriber for years, so it wouldn't be an issue for me.

The one thing I'd love to get as a subscriber is more data geek friendly thumbs up and thumbs down output. I want to slice and dice the information I have recorded in my stations lists, but it's very difficult to do. If you could provide xml or csv dumps of station information I'd be an already happy and enthusiastic listener in nirvana.

Great work and I look forward to further improvements.

Posted by: Tony at May 20, 2009 2:20 PM

Why isn't pandora mobile player work on all Windows Mobile phones? Especially with my HTC TyTn II (At&t Tilt). At least for the paying subscribers?
Also I couldn't figure out themes for the standalone player. Maybe it's available on web player only?
Anyway, I haven't used Pandora for the last couple years (befora that I was using it extensively) but just to support you I subscribed one hour ago.
Keep up the good work!

Posted by: fincan at May 20, 2009 2:36 PM

Hi Tom, thanks for the high level of engagement you're offering. It's rare these days and I appreciate it.

Now my gripe:

I hadn't realized until seeqpod went down, just how much I've developed the need to hear a specific song *right* *now*.

I know you guys are locked into a draconian licensing scheme for your free service, but I would gladly pay real money for more direct control. You have the songs I want to hear, and I have the money to pay you for them. There's got to be a way to make this happen...

Posted by: Bfarn at May 20, 2009 2:37 PM

I'm all for the change if it helps Pandora. You guys are doing a great job as I mentioned in my previous email.

However, one thing that's really important to me as a "semi" audiophile.... streaming qualify. If I pay for Pandora One, will you guys upgrade my streaming quality to the equal of 192kbs? That would have me sold. If I'm paying for the features and higher quality I'd like it to transcend into the mobile experince.

Posted by: Sheldon at May 20, 2009 2:44 PM

Come back to Canada and I'll consider subscribing. I don't get why other services (with smaller playlist and worser algorithm) don't have Pandora's licensing problems and is available here.

Posted by: Albin Forone at May 20, 2009 2:53 PM

And here I thought Pandora couldn't get any better. So far I love the new Pandora One player: the new 192Kbps stream sounds great, and the fact that I don't need to run a browser to listen to my stations is a welcome treat. There is one tiny issue with Pandora One that irks me, however: the tiny fonts.

As a visually impaired user, I have modified the appearance of the various OSes I use in order to accommodate my disability, but Pandora One currently does not allow me to modify the font size for the player (or if it does, it is a rather well hidden feature.) I hope that in future versions of Pandora One it will be possible to modify the player's font sizes, but until that time I'll just have to settle for great audio quality.

Keep up the great work,
Ren

Posted by: Ren at May 20, 2009 3:11 PM

Forget it. Pay. Not this year, if ever... And now I see that the song skip feature has been limited to five across my entire station library as opposed to the individual stations themselves. That is crap. I'm out.

Posted by: Jeremy Wilson at May 20, 2009 3:44 PM

Some suggestions for the desktop app (I'm on OSX):
1) a song progress bar so I can judge whether or not to skip a song or stick it out.
2) during quickmix show me what station the current song is playing from instead of "QuickMix" at the top.
3) An alternate view that shows past songs like on the web player. I want to be able to thumb up/down songs that have finished playing like in the web player. Sometimes I like a song but it doesn't belong in that station so I'd like to be able to listen to the song and then rate it.
4) an "always on top" option.
5) growl notification.

You guys are doing awesome work, keep it up.

Posted by: Anthony K at May 20, 2009 3:57 PM

The Vista sidebar gadget will still be kept though right?

Posted by: JR at May 20, 2009 4:07 PM

When I use pandora it gets very repetitive. I was wondering if the new version will be any different. It seems like the same songs come up every time I log in. Thank you.

Posted by: Dominick Chase at May 20, 2009 4:09 PM

I'm a big fan of Pandora--however there should be a flexible pay option--(i.e., Last.fm offers full service at $3/month)

Posted by: Ronny W at May 20, 2009 4:11 PM

will the improved quality and skip count increase work in any web-based environment (e.g. my PS3?)

Note: PS3 is not intel x86 based.

Posted by: Casey at May 20, 2009 4:18 PM

This may not be the venue but I'm not sure of an alternative method. Maybe I'm ignoring the obvious but exactly how do I change "skins" on the Pandora One player? There seems to be no menu option and right-clicking does nothing. One other point that is bugging me, I would like the application to only show in my taskbar tray, not the taskbar itself. However, no matter how many times I check and uncheck the "Always show in taskbar tray" checkbox, even started and restarted the application, and I still can't get the damn thing out of my taskbar and only to my taskbar tray. Am I missing something? And, ultimately, where else can I ask these questions as I adapt to this new application?

Posted by: Dward at May 20, 2009 4:40 PM

I love Pandora, am a subscriber, and really digging the new application (I'm running on Linux -- absolutely flawless, no problems at all).

Well done folks!

Posted by: Joe Pollard at May 20, 2009 5:01 PM

I'm reading all the moaning and groaning about what Pandora does and/or doesn't do. I'd just like to say that I think the whole Pandora thing is awesome. I'm 50 years old, and I still remember when you only had radio or record albums (which I couldn't often afford), and that was IT! You guys are so spoiled!!! Get over it! Free Pandora is just amazing; it's FREE! I love you, Pandora!!

Posted by: Tricia Patterson at May 20, 2009 5:22 PM

Signed up, this is awesome!

Feature suggestion for desktop app: global hotkeys. Other than that it's perfect! Thanks!

Posted by: Sam Pearson at May 20, 2009 5:58 PM

So even thought it's a paying service now, I still can't get it in Canada? What's preventing you from creating Pandora.ca and setting up shop here...? It's not like we're across the ocean or anything. You say that you want to appeal to international customers, what about your neighbours as a trial run?

Posted by: Bill P. at May 20, 2009 6:38 PM

I am ready to pay whatever the cost is... Just keep Pandora rolling forever!

Also looking forward for Android application.

Posted by: Gercek at May 20, 2009 6:40 PM

I'd like to echo what Kara wrote above. I have really enjoyed using Pandora for the past few years, and have discovered so much great new music through it, that I won't hesitate to re-subscribe next year. The new features are great, especially the desktop application. I hope you guys are around for a long time. Thanks.

Posted by: Tom S. at May 20, 2009 7:08 PM

Tom,
Any tips on getting it working with Ubuntu? How easy is it? I don't want to pay the subscription to find out it's a huge pain to install.

Posted by: Davis at May 20, 2009 7:44 PM

Hi Tom,

Great news! What I want to know is, will it work overseas? I moved to Japan and have been missing Pandora greatly. If I want to pay you guys the $36/year for this service, will I be able to do so?

Posted by: Chris at May 20, 2009 7:44 PM

I second Ronny W. on the $3/ month thing.

I adore Pandora, but I don't always get to sit down and listen. I would pay for an upgrade if there was a month to month option as opposed to a yearly one so I don't feel it's wasted. I know that sometimes I pay $3 to last.fm just so I can hear my .mp3 collection for a day when I'm at the office and I don't have to answer the phone.

Posted by: Jen at May 20, 2009 7:48 PM

I'm interested, but it would take a test drive of the desktop app and the higher bandwidth streams to see if I'm sold on the benefits.

I'm sure you must be working on how to do a trial version (isn't that just about the only way software actually gets sold these days?) I suggest full-featured but time limited (eg max 30 minutes per session, for a week, or 20 launches, etc).

If it's as compelling an improvement over the free version as you make it sound, then I will definitely be forking out once the 'free samples' wear off.

And man, $3/mo for Pandora is such a deal compared to $13/mo for Rhapsody. I know, apples & oranges - but music-listening bang for the buck, Pandora @ $3 kicks butt.

Posted by: Dan at May 20, 2009 7:59 PM

Android and Wii support and I'll sign up!

Posted by: Jay K at May 20, 2009 8:16 PM

Wow. I can't say I'm happy with the changes in Pandora - my first thought was this ruined my music experience at work and that I'd quit Pandora and go back to listening to things off of youtube - but I'm amazed at your customer service. I work for a large tech company and fully expected to come read some canned responses. So kudos to the Pandora team for transparency!

I understand the reasons for the changes a lot better and while I still think I'll be listening to less Pandora because of them, I'm willing to try it again.

Posted by: Jess at May 20, 2009 8:22 PM

I came here to find out what happened to my 'mini' player, and I see I'm not the only one. It's a bummer that you removed the 'mini' player away from the free service - that's my preferred way to listen Pandora. Reading your explanation, I can see you had valid business reasons, but I still can't help being disappointed. Maybe I should stop complaining and just subscribe.

Posted by: Greg at May 20, 2009 9:26 PM

quote:

You have (or rather HAD) a good product - bring back the free mini-player or I can see many, many users just simply going elsewhere.

Posted by: Rick at May 20, 2009 11:43 AM

@Rick:

You're an idiot if you think even one half of one percent of Pandora users will ditch Pandora because the mini player is gone. Nothing can match Pandora's library or algorithms.


@ Alee:

I have a station that only has one seed: Buraka Som Sistema . This station unfortunately only seems to play the same 7 or so songs, over and over again. I just find this funny, and wonder if there are really only 7 songs in the Music Genome project that match BSS, or if that's a bug.

Posted by: Dan at May 20, 2009 10:29 PM

Hello again,

I am very interested in purchasing the Pandora One service.

First, would I be able to share the account with my wife at the same time, in the same house and at different locations, such as at work and at home?

Will it work on 64 bit Vista/7? I was having issues using the gadget you guys released because of the lack of 64 bit flash.

Thanks again.

Posted by: Carlos at May 20, 2009 11:25 PM

Oh geez..
No payment via AmEx???

Posted by: Roman at May 20, 2009 11:29 PM

Are you using HE-AAC for the 192 Kbps stream (for the paid OS X app and the OS X browser based streams)? If so, this should sound much better than most MP3s if properly tuned/encoded.

Posted by: Chris at May 21, 2009 12:51 AM

OK so, I just wanted to clarify that there's nothing wrong with my browser, and that all these changes are due to the introduction of this new Pandora One -- 1) No more free browser mini-player, right? I used to be able to bring up a minimized window. 2) Now I can only skip 12 times a day, as opposed to potentially 144 times (6 times per hour, if I don't sleep :)), correct?

Posted by: Emma at May 21, 2009 1:32 AM

Can Pandora one be used in South Korea? ....I can't use normal Pandora over here...

Posted by: Noah Collin at May 21, 2009 4:05 AM

Looks pretty cool and I may try the new app... but what I've REALLY been waiting for is a Blackberry app for cached radiostations. I have the Pandora app for BB, but it only streams. I use Slacker on my BB because I can have 13 cached radio stations... the music quality is FAR better and it works if I'm in a subway or on a plane. But I prefer Pandora's stations and music algorithms... so I guess I'll keep waiting...

Posted by: Alex at May 21, 2009 6:25 AM

I was wondering since i use Pandora on my blackberry storm, will the upgraded account reflect on that client as well? If so will it prompt us to download another client or will the changes go through without us having to do anything. I'm sorry if this was answered i didnt get a chance to look through all of the comments.

Posted by: Mistaman at May 21, 2009 6:41 AM

@ alee, thanks for the feedback. I wish more had a response to blog postings. You guys have my loyalty and I try to share the word as much as possible. I'll end up going with Pandora One in the next two months once I get the iphone, and I SERIOUSLY hope to see 192kbs in the near future. Its already amazing, but I sure would love that 192 with my $150 headphones. Make for the perfect chillout time. :-)

Best wishes!

Posted by: Sheldon at May 21, 2009 7:49 AM

Nice little app you have there, good to see you further developing Pandora. I am a subscriber already so I definitely like to see you adding new features. Anthony K up there has some good ideas as well, steal those, :) also maybe this is already available, haven't looked, but can we get the option to purchase a Pandora subscription as a gift for someone else? Thanks! -Matt

Posted by: Matt G at May 21, 2009 7:54 AM

Great job guys. Sent you some good web karma: http://twitter.com/andrewpbrett

Any ideas about how to use the iTunes keyboard controls to control the Pandora app instead?

Posted by: Andy Brett at May 21, 2009 7:56 AM

By the way, one thing I was wondering, I'll second what another person said and go a bit further. For those "Geeks"... it would be really really slick to be able to browse through the list of musical characteristics, ie "genomes" that make up some song characteristics and build stations and experinment with SPECIFICS. Just thought I'd throw this out, perhaps an "advanced view" for something like that. Be able to select checkboxes. That would be great if for instance I'm customizing an acoustic contemprary guitar station. I could then filter out "contemporary piano" if that existed. Or "bluegrass feel"... etc

Posted by: Sheldon at May 21, 2009 7:57 AM

Pandora is my favorite ap on my iPhone. I'm stunned at the ease of use and the whole concept of streaming music on my phone. I was trying to explain it to my Mom last, she's actually tech savvy for 71 and she would like to get an iPhone. It took me 15 minutes of explanation to get the whole Pandora concept across to her (I had her make a Patsy Cline station).

I'm so impressed with Pandora I'm considering the subscription service for my desktop at home.

Cheers!

menopause early

Posted by: Gracie at May 21, 2009 9:05 AM

Please count me in with the Blackberry users who are wanting to know if Pandora One subscriptions will apply to the mobile application. That's where I use it the most. Thank you.

Posted by: Chris Joseph at May 21, 2009 9:42 AM

I just downloaded the new Pandora One. So far I really like it. But there are a couple of features that I miss from the previous interface.

1- Ability to see previously played songs. I often don't have a chance to Thumbs Up/Down a song before the next one starts playing and rely on seeing the history to do so.

2- I would prefer seeing a slider for volume adjust rather than having to click on the speaker icon and then do the adjustment and then click on the close icon.

Posted by: Justin B. at May 21, 2009 11:35 AM

Tom & Pandora Crew,

I love the idea of Pandora One, however it is lacking one crucial feature I've always wanted, and that is on demand listening...ala Real's Rhapsody service and the like. I know the current $3/mo is not nearly enough to cover such a service's cost, so I'd gladly pay $10-15/mo to have all the features of Pandora One plus on demand listening. Perhaps you could call it "Pandora Plus" or "Pandora Deluxe"

PS: I'm also a Linux user (primarily Ubuntu 8.04-32bit) and I really hope you guys put out an Android app in the near future ;)

Posted by: Derick Eisenhardt at May 21, 2009 12:00 PM

Just wondering if the advertisers' lack of interest in supporting the mini-player was based on actual research or simply arrived at intuitively. Personally, when I use(d) the mini-player, I did so so that I could see it and access it regularly on my desktop, which means I regularly saw the ads. Now, Pandora is buried under whatever other tabs I'm working with and I rarely see the ads. Sure, I could open Pandora in a separate window, but that loses the convenience of the mini-player and my point is to question the logic of the decision.

Posted by: Tim at May 21, 2009 12:55 PM

Love Pandora One Desktop, except for one thing:

Your fake "growl-like" song notifications. You should really just use the real Growl on OS X. It's way more customizable than the imitator will ever be.

I'm a developer and I've coded for Growl, so I'd suggest that you use the TCP/IP Growl interface for easiest integration with your Flash/AIR based Pandora One app.

Posted by: Ian Levesque at May 21, 2009 1:07 PM

I love Pandora! I listen for hours at a time, via my AT&T air card, and have experienced very few interruptions. One thing that puzzles me however is that if I upgrade to Pandora One, I will lose the ads. I actually like the ads. In fact, I have taken advantage of a couple of offers. If I opt for an higher quality stream, I will lose such offers. That kind of stinks. Does anyone know whether Pandora One gives you an on/off option with regard to the ads?

Posted by: Robert at May 21, 2009 1:56 PM

I just wanted to say THANK YOU!!! I've loved and used Pandora for years, and now you guys have totally pulled through by coming out with this desktop app with pop-up notifications. Now that I'm graduating and moving into a real-life job, I subscribed a few months ago, so being upgraded to Pandora One for free has just cemented my belief that you guys provide the best online music streaming service out there!

I'll admit I didn't get a chance to read through all the comments, but one thing I did notice is if the music is playing with the Desktop App open, it will get paused when I click close. It will resume when I right click the tray and click play, but I'm hoping that will be fixed in the next version or so!

Thanks again guys for providing such an awesome service!

Posted by: Scott Cutler at May 21, 2009 2:05 PM

Money is tight now, but as soon as I can I'm going to upgrade.

Posted by: Ken at May 21, 2009 2:48 PM

I like the skins and the desktop client but I have a few issues with the latter. The alpha-blending makes my poor computer beg for mercy, and if you run another AIR app that uses the tooltray, it replaces Pandora's icon (and menu) with it's own; which means if you close the Pandora main window, it becomes an orphan process (I see this as a problem with Adobe AIR and not with your app but still).

Posted by: BW at May 21, 2009 3:14 PM

Will the higher bit rate work on my squeezebox

Posted by: tony at May 21, 2009 4:19 PM

First [and probably only] time poster here. I've listened to you guys for years, most of my stations are the original ones I made when I first found out about you. You folks have helped me expand my musical tastes and broadened my horizons.

A bit of a peeve with your 'five skips total' thing, which is sad really. Some of my stations keep playing the same songs most the time and I keep skipping them. Or doing the "don't play for a month" option, which is the better deal, but still! At least have the songs be skipped when someone does a "Thumb Down". They get thumbed down for a reason, and I don't think folks want to still listen to a song once it gets that done.

All in all, let me say that the moment I get paid, I'll settle the tab and upgrade.

Posted by: Joey B. at May 21, 2009 5:03 PM

@Scott Cutler, @BW--Check out our very helpful FAQ entry on the Desktop app :http://blog.pandora.com/faq/#1522. It explains, among other things how to keep the app in your Taskbar tray (use the triangular "Menu" key and select "Preferences")

@Joey B.--Repetition is a common problem and it can be very frustrating! The best way to avoid repetition is to limit the number of songs you give thumbs-up; Pandora plays these songs for you more often than others. Click on "station options" next to the station name and select "Edit station details" from the pull-down menu. A page with a description of the station should come up. Go down to the list of "Thumbed-up Songs", check a bunch of songs you're tired of hearing and click "Remove Checked". Now restart your station. You can and should still give songs thumbs-up but keep in mind that these songs will play back somewhat frequently. So if you know you want to hear a song again soon, give it a thumbs-up. Hope that saves you some skips!

Time to go home. G'night!

-A

Posted by: Alee - Listener Advocate at May 21, 2009 5:34 PM

Sure would be nice if u'r subscribe page was encrypted for me to trust sending my credit card info over the net.

Take a look at the web browser: there is no lock next the address for the payment page

http://www.pandora.com/subscribe

Posted by: Peter at May 21, 2009 6:52 PM

Let me echo Max and say minimize to tray would be really nice. It can kind of be accomplished by leaving always go to tray enable, closing the Pandora desktop window, then bringing up the menu in the tray and selecting play but it pauses the music each time you do it.

Oh and any chance subscriber timeout can be customized? I often use Pandora to fall asleep and there's no sense wasting Pandora and my bandwidth for the 3-4 hours after I drift off.

Posted by: Andrew Fidel at May 21, 2009 11:36 PM

Hey folks,

Thought it worth mentioning again that the Pandora One upgrade page IS 100% SECURE for sending Credit Card info.

Although, no lock appears, the source code of the page reveals that it is indeed secure. This was just a clerical glitch that we'll fix soon.

In the meantime, you can use this URL to allay any concern: https://www.pandora.com/subscribe

Cheers,
Alee

Posted by: Alee - Listener Advocate at May 22, 2009 10:42 AM

Works normally in ubuntu 9.04, assuming air is already installed.

- One-click install (just about) from the browser.
- Application is in Menu > Accessories > Pandora.
- Minimizes to the tray
- New-song notification integrates with ubuntu's new status-notification widget flawlessly.

I haven't run it on windows to compare, but from what I can tell, everything I expect 'just works' right out of the box - I was up and running from the web app to the desktop app in less than a minute, including downloading the app.

Nice job with this one guys. Thanks for not forgetting the linux crowd.

- Mark

Posted by: Mark K at May 22, 2009 11:09 AM

Just started using Pandora; It has everything I need. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Posted by: Larry Fugate at May 22, 2009 11:40 AM

Typed too quickly...

Minimizing (on ubuntu) seems to minimize to the minimized-window panel.

Closing the app window seems to 'minimize' to the tray and pause the currently-running song. Right-click and 'Play' to get things going again...

I imagine *someone* is already working on minimize-to-tray...

- Mark

Posted by: Mark K at May 22, 2009 11:47 AM

I will definitely be signing up for Pandora One shortly... However, if I may, there has been an enhancement I have been wishing for for a long time.

It would be really nice to have greater control over the "Quick Mix". I'd like to be able to "weight" the stations played in the quick mix. For example I may want my quick mix to include my "Modern Rock" station and every once in a while pick a song from my "Alternative/Grunge" station. (Not an equal balance)

I'm envisioning maybe "sliders" to allow the user to control how often songs are played from the various stations in the quick mix.

If this is not the correct forum for enhancement requests, I apologize.

Posted by: Dan at May 22, 2009 11:58 AM

After hearing that you have to pay royalties for even just a second of a song I'm surprised you haven't implemented something I've wanted from the beginning, a station wide thumbs down for certain artists.

Also based on what was just written about thumbs up songs playing more often it would be great if one could clear a thumbs up song while it's playing without giving it a thumbs down.

Posted by: Tony at May 22, 2009 12:27 PM

Why must I sign in everytime I log on now. Before, it would remember my log in info, now I have to re type it in each time.
Why the change?
It is somewhat annoying, as I cannot use fill in, nor will windows remember it.

Posted by: William at May 22, 2009 1:46 PM

Tom,

When I saw you had a premium offering, I signed up before even looking at what was offered. Sure, that's a rather stupid financial decision, but I kept telling my coworkers that I would *PAY* for a service like this (though offering it as ad supported ensures a rich community, so I'm not recommending going pay only).

I like many genres of music but I'm very picky about what artists and songs I like. Yours has been the only service I have found that has introduced me, reliably and consistently, to new music. Your service has also discovered every CD I have ever owned through simply clicking "Thumbs Up"/"Thumbs Down".
I find with my older stations, I rarely click anything at all (maybe an occasional "don't play this for a month" and an occasional thumbs up to a new song) but it reliably picks songs I enjoy, many from artists that are not RIAAdio.

You have a fantastic service that anyone who operates a radio station should deeply fear.

I can't imagine the difficulties you face dealing with the all of the bureaucracy involved in music (RIAA, ASCAP, SoundExchange) not to mention the big players like Clear Channel who have massive lobbying arms and would probably be happy to see you disappear.

From a music lover -- thanks for the hard work. You make my day more productive and more enjoyable.

--
Matt

Posted by: Matthew Dippel at May 22, 2009 2:27 PM

I've been a Pandora Subscriber for almost a year now, and I like the new desktop player, but have two suggestions:

1. Really needs support for media keys and/or some type of global keyboard shortcuts when the desktop player is not in focus. When working in an office and the phone rings it is nice to be able to press a few keys to pause the song. Sadly I don't think that an Adobe AIR app can do this...

2. Better documentation on the player. I was testing to see if there were any keyboard shortcuts and found that UP/Down arrow works for adjusting the volume and Right arrow works for switching songs when the player window is in focus. I didn't see that referenced anywere, so you might want to add it to FAQ

Otherwise keep up the great work!

Posted by: Greg Bray at May 22, 2009 2:41 PM

Yea.. my media controls on my Gateway Laptop work on the player, >>|, >, [ ] etc... and the arrow keys.. i just found that out, too!

Was wondering why I couldnt skip a song and the word "hour" was missing from the warning! now i know.

Posted by: Chris at May 22, 2009 9:57 PM

It would be really nice to have greater control over the "Quick Mix". I'd like to be able to "weight" the stations played in the quick mix. For example I may want my quick mix to include my "Modern Rock" station and every once in a while pick a song from my "Alternative/Grunge" station. (Not an equal balance)
Your Keywords

Posted by: justpauleaston at May 22, 2009 10:14 PM

I knew this day would come. I've been with Pandora for about 4 years as free user. Attended Tim's Pandora seminars in two different states.
I sport the Pandora shirt and caps. I've loved all the changes and upgrade, and watched in excitement as it grew into new devices cell phones, Wifi hardware etc. I'm going to miss those free upgrades once a year. As much I would love to upgrade and hang out with the big boys. I just cant justify that price right now. Because the economy has hit home.

Posted by: Roland at May 23, 2009 9:48 AM

ps3 notes: it's a web-browser, so it should work 192kbps just as any other web browser with flash should. I don't think the type of processor would be a problem, or the custom build of web-browser, as flash is still enabled.

- it would be AWESOME to have a deal with sony for a ps3 pandora app - much like they have with folding@home.
- right now I have to click web-browser->bookmarks->pandora->log-in
and then the interface is distorted and weird to press all the designed-for-the-mouse buttons.

Posted by: Nathan at May 23, 2009 3:38 PM

Thanks, everyone who answered my questions.
* Pandora indeed works fine on Linux, even on my somewhat esoteric configuration (no desktop environment)
* I am missing the history scroll in the player, so that I could put to sleep or thumb the songs played before.
* A very neat addition to both player and WUI would be a playlist history, exportable to a text file.
* Maybe subscribed users can be given an option of 'hibernate', where a song can be put on shelf for a longer time than one month. Does it really matter for royalties?
* You really need to release an API for Pandora Backstage.

R.

Posted by: Roman at May 24, 2009 5:12 AM

you guys have really hit this one out of the park. I'm so glad that Pandora is no longer tied down to my web browser.I personally really like the idea of a demo version of the desktop application. Something for us to ponder for a future release.


Posted by: Hydroxycut Review at May 24, 2009 6:53 AM

Tom,

Someone above mentioned that Pandora was their favorite iPhone app ... but didn't ask "When do we get it for the iPhone?". So ... when do we get it for the iPhone? This is what I've been waiting for before starting to use Pandora on my iPhone and iPod Touch.

JR

Posted by: JR at May 24, 2009 7:04 AM

Installed just fine on Ubuntu 9.04, with the caveat that I had to completely uninstall the older Pandora desktop app first.

Great app, you guys! Nice job!

Posted by: Jeff Hobbs at May 24, 2009 7:40 AM

I think HQ streaming is a very good move. When you have good quality speakers it's very important to hear every detail of song and have very good time. Also web 2.0 style design is very georgous..

Thanks for this astonishing app.

Posted by: Garry at May 24, 2009 8:15 AM

The standalone app is disappointing. It uses a lot more CPU than the browser window, and there is NO way to look at previous songs. So if a song finishes, you cannot give it a thumbs up or down. If you give something a thumbs down just as it's ending, it will mark the NEXT song! BAD!

Posted by: JB at May 24, 2009 11:57 AM

Hats off guys!!! Really its very handy!!

Angela

Posted by: Angela at May 24, 2009 7:09 PM

BTW, can you set up the application to work via http proxy?

Posted by: Roman at May 24, 2009 11:05 PM

i did not try this before but after hearing many people words i got an intention to try this application once and see how it works?sounds interesting :)

Posted by: Los Angeles Criminal Lawyers at May 25, 2009 1:44 AM

Upgraded today, pretty much just for the quality bump. If you're ever driving serious headphones or a "real" audio system via Pandora it's worth it hands down.

Any hopes of an even higher level being added later for more cash?

Posted by: JerWA at May 25, 2009 3:15 AM

Can we please get 192kb streaming for SqueezeCenter users as well?

Posted by: Stephen at May 25, 2009 7:34 AM

I'd pay $36 to get this on my Android phone, the T-Mobile G1.

Posted by: J.W. Koebel at May 25, 2009 10:58 AM

Thank you Team Pandora! After reading the professional manner in which customer comments and concerns are regarded (not to mention the music service you provide), I was sold.

I will gladly pay $36 a year to support companies like this one. ;-)

Posted by: Matthias Cole at May 25, 2009 3:23 PM

It would be awesome if this came with international listening!!!

Posted by: Joshua Netterfield at May 26, 2009 4:25 AM

Nice to see that previous subscribers were automatically upgraded.
Also nice to see that Squeezebox users are unaffected!

Nice work!

Posted by: Aaron Klenke at May 26, 2009 6:08 AM

Any word on what the recent PRS rate drop means for Pandora?

Posted by: Alexis Li at May 26, 2009 8:07 AM

I wonder does the news about a cheaper rate for streaming music in the UK mean we might get the service back. I really really hope so.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8068154.stm

Posted by: Akyan at May 26, 2009 8:08 AM

I've been using Pandora now for years. About a year ago my work blocked Pandora.com from streaming. I just upgraded to Pandora One and have discovered that the desktop app will work even though the website is blocked (at least at my work).

I would like to second some of the comments about the app: being able to see previous songs is important (some times I cannot get to the app to thumb up/down a song until after it has already finished playing).

A song timer/progress bar to indicate the time remaining on a song so I know if I want to skip it or not (I don't want you to be charged for royalties if the song is almost done anyway).

I don't know if this has been suggested yet: there is currently no way to add a Genre station to the Desktop App without going to the web player and adding it there (this is a problem for me because the web player doesn't function at work).

Posted by: David at May 26, 2009 8:37 AM

Pandora is a great example of what the NYT was talking about with their article "Back By Popular Demand" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/fashion/24nice.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2)- kind and user-friendly, what more could you ask for?

Posted by: Lindsey at May 26, 2009 12:34 PM

No graphic equalizer, no pandora one for me

Posted by: Kyle at May 26, 2009 1:05 PM

Pandora One is a sweet addition to an already great product. One feature request though: I'd like the ability to minimize directly to the system tray (and not appear in the normal taskbar at all).

Keep up the great work!

Posted by: Jonah at May 26, 2009 2:24 PM

I am still getting 128k through my Squeezebox interface. I subscribed to Pandora specifically so I can stream it through Squeezebox. Is there something I need to do to upgrade to the full 192K? Or is that coming? I sure hope so!

John

Posted by: John at May 26, 2009 3:08 PM

Just in time for my birthday! You guys must really love me! And I love you RIGHT BACK! Thank you - this is really fantastic!

Posted by: Lise at May 26, 2009 4:04 PM

Pandora One Wish list items:
1) Choice of song count down/count up/progress meter.
2) Identify the station that a quick mix song is coming from.
3)Option to have thumbed up songs automatically bookmarked.
4) There are thumb up/thumb down indicators, how about a bookmarked already indicator?
5) Option to generate song logs of sorts...log of artist/Track/Album played today, this session, this week.
6) Option to show emusic.com and rhapsody indicator (indicator shows whether the song is available on these music services (Not everyone uses or waants to use iTunes/Amazon)
7) Minimize to tray option
8) Stay on top option
9) Choice of 1) always startup application on a certain station or 2) startup playing last played station. (Other user configurable startup options by day & time)?
10) Try to keep Pandora/Squeezebox/Squeeze Network happily working together - So far, so good.
11) 192kb+ quality streams for SqueezeCenter/SqueezeNetwork users

Posted by: CaptAmaz at May 26, 2009 4:17 PM

Any chance of fixing the sign in accessibility issues for people who use screen readers. I'm on my second year of subscribing to Pandora and Adobe has built an infrastructure to make Flash accessible years ago. Yet the last time I talked with your support department about this a year ago, I was told Adobe had to make Flash accessible. They did long before this so I still wonder if you are looking at this or what's causing the delay. I shouldn't have to get assistance just to sign in here. Other web sites have resolved this.

Posted by: Kelly Ford at May 26, 2009 4:27 PM

Two things:

1) I sent email to support complaining about lack of ability to pay with American Express. That's my only credit card and I'm not comfortable using my VISA debit card online. I got a reply back the same day telling me how to arrange payment using Amex! THANK YOU!

2) I have Pandora linked into Facebook. No status update was sent that I just subscribed to Pandora One. An opportunity lost to leverage it to advertise methinks.

Posted by: Weave at May 26, 2009 4:38 PM

Do I get the better streaming experience through my linked Sonos account?

Posted by: Tim at May 26, 2009 6:09 PM

Pandora has been on my iPod for a while and just started using the app today - it is really great! This will now replace an XM radio subscription that I used primarily in my house. Pandora is much better suited to meet my needs on the iPod and I am willing to pay for any upgrade that adds more features like P. One.

Posted by: Tim Frasier at May 26, 2009 7:47 PM

I don't subscribe to Pandora One, mainly because I spend most of my time in Japan, and can't get the music there. When I'm in the U.S., it's great to be able to access it, and I haven't minded the ads. Until this evening. I got my first ever audio ad in the midst of my radio station. To me, that means it's no longer my radio station! I'll be less likely to access Pandora now when I'm in the States.

Posted by: Gary at May 26, 2009 10:57 PM

Who do we lobby to make the RIAA change its licensing policy? I think that being forced to hide upcoming songs is completely ridiculous and I hate that you guys are taking the blame for someone else's crappy policy.

Posted by: Michael at May 27, 2009 5:42 AM

PLEASE come back to the UK asap! The high licencing fees here have now been considerably reduced because PRS have finally realised that no one is willing to pay the fees that they were previously asking:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8068154.stm

Yes we now have Spotify which is an excellent music service, but it doesn't do what Pandora does i.e. make music suggestions. I know Spotify are looking at this - A tie up between Pandora and Spotify would be awesome.

Posted by: Red Kite at May 27, 2009 7:58 AM

I love the new Pandora One player! It's so much more compact and stops my clumsy self from accidentally browsing somewhere else in the Pandora tab.

Aside from song history, progress bar for current song and being able to edit quickmix in the app, I want to suggest that the app be modified so that when you click to *focus* the app, the click doesn't go through to the app. Too often I click to focus the app and I end up opening the web page for an artist or song when I didn't intend to.

Other than this, great job! I love Pandora and will continue to support the project. :)

Posted by: Zorin at May 27, 2009 11:45 AM

Oh, one more feature suggestion: Apple remote support.

I miss being able to pause and skip with the Apple Remote like I can in iTunes. Pandora being its own app is such a great opportunity to implement this and other cool features.

Posted by: Zorin at May 27, 2009 11:49 AM

My wife and I both have Pandora stations with out preferred settings.

Would the subscription only cover one of our accounts?

Posted by: matthew at May 27, 2009 12:34 PM

This stinks! Only 12 skips? No thanks - Good luck, Pandora!

Posted by: JL at May 27, 2009 2:03 PM

On the desktop client I miss the line showing the track length/progress as well as the ability to see the last track played. Love Pandora!

Posted by: Owen at May 27, 2009 5:40 PM

First of all, I have to say that I have been using Pandora One basically since its induction, and it is nothing short of incredible! The desktop window is sexy, and when I hide it to the taskbar, it is still excellent.

I do, of course have suggestions from user interface issues that I have discovered:

1) Minimizing the application to the tray stops the music playing - I am sure this was programmed in on purpose so that when people hit exit on the desktop window it stops the music. I don't like it at all. Even with two monitors sometimes I just want it in the tray. Out of sight, out of mind, if you will. This should be a preference at the very least.

2) There is no Always On Top setting. When I am just surfing the web, I don't want to have to be alt-tabbing all the time to get to the desktop window. Again, as a preference this would be excellent.

3) It doesn't let me see the past songs - On the website application, you can go alllllll the way back to when you first started listening, and give thumbs up and down all you want. In fact, I usually use this feature to thumbs-down songs without using my skips. With the desktop application, all you can see is the song that you just listened to, which is disappointing, especially if I want to thumbs-up a song that just ended! There is no way to get to it except for waiting for it to play again, and that can be very frustrating.

All in all though, the program is extremely well done, and I look forward to an update with new features soon!

Posted by: Alex at May 27, 2009 6:36 PM

I am a huge Pandora fan!!!! I currently am using it in my car with my Samsung Eternity phone and blue tooth handsfree add on that enables it to play through my car radio. Is it true that the 192K available with Pandora One will not actually play at that rate on Squeezebox? A post mentioned they are still getting it at 128K.
Also, I just purchased a Samsung Eternity phone through ATT and they are charging me $9.99 a month for Pandora. Will purchasing Pandora One for my home Squeezebox apply for use to my Samsung Eternity? It seems unfair that IPhones get Pandora free and other users must pay $9.99....who gets the fee? ....Pandora? ....Att?

Posted by: Shirl F at May 27, 2009 7:38 PM

I'm going to agree with Weave. You guys should have the Facebook, Twitter etc. feeds update to let people know that you upgraded to Pandora One. It's a great way to spread the word, and gives bragging rights to let your friends know what they're missing!

Posted by: Michael at May 27, 2009 10:58 PM

Just wanted to add that I'm also disappointed that the pop-out player is now subscription only. Guess it's time to move on, good luck Pandora.

Posted by: Jay at May 28, 2009 11:00 AM

i would love to buy the service.won't mind whether it is $36 or $100

Posted by: Los Angeles DUI Lawyer at May 28, 2009 11:41 AM

@Alee,

You are missing my point. I already know about the support link telling me the hints for people who are blind and have discussed this very issue with support on numerous occasions. And that support link says to sign in I need to get someone who can see to sign me in. My point is that this an endless circle. Pandora tells me Adobe needs to do more to make Flash accessible. And I'm saying Adobe has done the work and did it years ago. For some references please see http://blog.kellyford.org/archives/2008/05/trying_to_conne.html, the Adobe accessibility blog at http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/, and the Adobe Best practices at http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/best_practices.html.

The last time I exchanged e-mail with support on this topic I was told to go tell Adobe you needed Flash to support accessibility. And Adobe says they do support it and my use of Flash web sites that comply with Adobe's accessibility requirements shows that it is possible to make an accessible flash site.

So I'm trying to understand what it will take to get Pandora to move forward on this. Is it a resouve issue (you don't have the funds), a knowledge iussue or something missing from Flash's accessibility support? I'd really like to not have this same discussion in 2010.

Posted by: Kelly Ford at May 28, 2009 4:57 PM

Supposing I subscribe for a year. Is there an option to cancel the subscription midway?

Posted by: Oliver Parkinson at May 30, 2009 2:10 AM

Pandora is amazing. Love it. Would like to see Media Key support for the desktop app (i rock out in my garage while working in my car, and have a media remote - sometimes i'd like to skip some songs!!!)

Overall, wonderful job and wonderful price point. $36 is amazing. I hope you keep original subscribers on that price if you ever jump up. That would be amazing.

Posted by: Slade at May 30, 2009 6:25 AM

Tom/Alee,

I am new to Pandora, but I am really enjoying it so far (one week). Great product and it looks like you are building a great company. I will upgrade as soon as you support the higher bit rate for Sonos - but not until then. So start cracking the whip on the engineering team.

Thanks!

Posted by: Brian at May 30, 2009 11:14 AM

A note to linux users:

The standard AIR install doesn't work on non-deb/rpm distros. But strangely the AIR SDK does. Just install that, and you can run it from the command-line.

Cute app: I second the thought of being able to go back through the last N songs (they'd be in a list so why not more than 3?!) and letting us thumbs them to where we want, including.... neutral! (A small pet peeve of mine, though I know I can work around it.

Also it seems to grab the keyboard focus between songs on my setup, when it does the pop over, you may wish to see if there's a way to make it so that window never gets focus.

Posted by: Ira Cooper at May 30, 2009 7:49 PM

Though I am the biggest Pandora Fan and even a paying subscriber, I am disappointed at the crew with their rendition of the desktop application. It looks like they decided not to take the extra mile and adapted the PC application into a MAC OS application. And it doesn't live up to apple's standards. I hope you are working on it and soon release an original app for the MAC.
It is not the first time I make comments about the fact that I feel Pandora neglects Apple users. An iPhone app that controls the desktop app has been long asked for as well. Even if it becomes a paid app. It should be unnecessary to run to the computer every time you want to thumb up or down a station.

Posted by: Ricardo Cavenecia at May 31, 2009 9:24 AM

Is Pandora One available for the mac?

Posted by: Dev at June 1, 2009 12:59 PM

I'd like to add my encouragement for either making an addition to the desktop client to allow scrobbling to LastFM or make an interface to the desktop client so that someone else can build it!

I really enjoy the suggested music I get from Pandora, but I also love having my aggregated music history from LastFM. Would love to see that brought to the desktop client like it has been for the web

Posted by: Chris R at June 1, 2009 3:29 PM

I'd also like to suggest adding menu items to the desktop client that can control the music (start/stop, volume, skip). At least then I can assign global hotkeys on my Mac so I can work with the app without having to alt-tab all the time =)

Posted by: Chris R at June 1, 2009 3:33 PM

How about Pandora for G1 Phone???

WE WANT PANDORA FOR G1, PLEASE!
Google Phone + Pandora = BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD!!!

Posted by: Luki at June 1, 2009 4:29 PM

While I love the idea of Pandora Desktop, there is no way on God's green earth I am installing that hog of a platform, Adobe Air. So for now at least, no Pandora Desktop for me... Maybe if you port a version that works without a wasteful platform base like Air, I'll make the switch.

That said, I am loving my Pandora on my computer, and definitely on my phone as well! Great job with the Music Genome Project! Brilliant!

Posted by: greg at June 2, 2009 11:37 AM

@Kelly Ford--Allow me to apologize. It will indeed take more than Adobe's accessibility for Pandora to create an independently useable sign-in interface for visually impaired users. It is on our to-do list and I am very sorry to say that we have no new developments on when this will be available.

@Oliver Parkinson--If for any reason you are unhappy with Pandora One, please contact support@pandora.com for a full refund. If you use it for a month or more and still wish to cancel, we can arrange a pro-rated refund (the rate is $3/month).

@Ricardo Cavenecia--I and many of my colleagues here are Apple users and we totally dig and use the app. I can't really speak to your criticism as it's rather general but I assure you, no corners were cut.

@Dev--Yes, the app is available on Mac and PC!

-Alee

Posted by: Alee - Listener Advocate at June 2, 2009 12:12 PM

Got it working on Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 x64

go to http://www.bauer-power.net/2009/05/getting-adobe-air-to-work-in-ubuntu-904.html and follow the instructions. You'll have to do the additional steps I posted in the second comment on that page and will repeat here:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
sudo getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so
sudo getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo getlibs -l libgnome-keyring.so.0.1.1

and

sudo cp /usr/lib/libadobecertstore.so /usr/lib32

Posted by: John at June 2, 2009 4:40 PM

Can I install pandora on multiple pc's?

Posted by: mtb at June 3, 2009 5:03 AM

I like the Pandora One player but find that I have to reboot after one use. If I don't it just sits there. Windows XP.

And I miss not being able to go back one song. Sometimes I want to check to see who was playing, or thumbs up or down and if I don't get there in time, its gone.

Posted by: David at June 3, 2009 5:47 AM

@ Pandora: You guys are great in your response. I'd like to mention that i've had to eliminate some of my listening to Pandora on work computers that do allow it simply because Pandora is a memory hog for lower end computers.

Anything you guys have considered about offering a less resource hungry option for streaming? Maybe using javascript instead of flash? its a less resource hungry platform.... just curious. My home computer with 4 gb handles fine, but computers with only 1 gb or so of memory have a difficult time with it and other apps running.

Posted by: Sheldon at June 3, 2009 8:03 AM

This sounds like a great desktop application. I really like the high quality stream upgrade as well as the ability to skip as much as I would like. Will probably end up dropping Rhapsody and just going with your new application as I tend to stream Pandora more than Rhapsody and your option is much cheaper.

Posted by: Sniper at June 3, 2009 10:46 AM

I knew this would happen. You had such a great thing, but nibble by nibble we get less and less. All the different ads were pretty livable, but the daily limit to 12 skips a day is atrocious.

The worst is now you have a product to shell out to us, and that surely means the death of free Pandora. The business world just has to keep taking and taking from a good idea until it goes to far.

One of the best things previously about Pandora is I could go anywhere, log in, and use a wonderful product. Now the free Pandora is starting to suck, and now the good features are only in the pay version which restricts freedom of movement.

BAH!

Posted by: Demurrer at June 3, 2009 4:02 PM

I bought a subscription to Pandora One, and the desktop player is pretty good.

One MAJOR feature that is lacking from the desktop player is the ability to view previously played songs.

I do not want to be micromanaging Pandora. I typically rate a string of songs all at once.

Posted by: kevogod at June 3, 2009 8:54 PM

@ Demurrer:

Do you think bandwith, salaries, benefits, and all the investment these fellows put into Pandora is free? $36 bucks is pocket change to support them? Just remember development like this is INTENSE, technically demanding. They are bringing us what I consider THE superior product for music experince on the web, and this bandwith to thousands and possibly millions (care to chime in on average daily listener count pandora?).... IS NOT FREE.

Not trying to argue, but please remember they put hard work into this and need to be able to pay for their house, car, and eat! $36 is very reasonable. The ad's understandable for them to continue forward in making it an appealing platform. They can charge make it free because of those ad's.


I worry about Pandora's future, as all great things never seem to last, but not because they don't have a great idea, but because great ideas are nice, but they need financial backing. Demurrer, remember this, we all have to eat. :-)

Posted by: Sheldon at June 4, 2009 7:19 AM

I would consider upgrading if I could have a little more control over why I give a thumbs down.

For example, I am trying to build a radio station which plays Irish folk songs. I have given a thumbs up to every song which plays because it has Irish roots, and a thumbs down to every song that plays because it has folk roots. Yet I keep getting songs with folk roots.

It would be nice to have a check box to narrow down even more what I am looking for when I give a thumbs up or down.

My Irish instrumental station is working perfectly though and I'm enjoying the Pandora experience overall.

Posted by: Cynthia at June 4, 2009 12:36 PM

Upset that the mini-player has been taken away?

I've got the perfect solution. To resolve this issue follow these steps exactly.

This is a little tricky so pay close attention:

1. Go to Pandora >
2. Login (if not already logged in) >
3. Wait for the player to start >

...now here comes the "James Bond" high-tech tricky stuff, pay close attention now...

Solution:
4. Re-size your window so it just fits the player. Amazing, I know.

No need to write me back and tell me thanks because as I dont mind sharing my vast knowledge of web browsers with people :)

Holy crap people.... It's FREE!!!!!!!
...just be glad that they have kept it that way.

I challenge complainers to find any free radio site out there that does what the free version of Pandora Radio does, skipping songs, rating songs etc. Wait... I'll save you the time... it doesn't exist!

Bottom line...
Pandora is FREE!!! So quit your common belly-aching and enjoy this FREE service! :)

I only say this because Pandora is too respectful of you morons that are complaining.

Just goes to show... you try to do something nice for people and all they want to do is piss on it. I for one, appreciate what you do and have no complaints because it's FREE!. So thank you for my FREE internet radio, you guys Rock!

BTW,
Did I happen to mention that you can listen to Pandora for FREE?

Posted by: Cam at June 4, 2009 1:30 PM

Love the standalone client. Have decided to become a subscriber to show you some love and support. However what I REALLY REALLY want is a plug-in for Windows Media Center. There are a couple of hacks out there, but now that you've done a standalone desktop app, it would be great to see it with a 10-ft interface for WMC. I'm fine if that's only available as a paid option! PLEASE PLEASE bring the Pandora experience to WMC (maybe in time for the WM7 launch on October 22)!

Do that, and I'll get a subscription for every media center/TV in the house! I'd even be willing to pay 2x as much for the WMC version ($72 per year).

Posted by: John at June 4, 2009 4:31 PM

Love Pandora, Don't love Pandora's tactics.

Let me be clear, I'm not upset that you are now offering enhanced service for a fee - if I could afford it I'd be showing some love by subscribing. I'm annoyed because you offered a desktop app for free and now you decide to take its functionality away because you realized after the fact that you want to make people pay for that type of feature.

I love Pandora. I've been using the desktop application for Mac for a while now. I'm a college student so $36 for music I won't end up owning just isn't an option. I'd love to continue to help Pandora generate ad sales by listening to you but as one of the comments mentioned above... don't make me suffer as a way to "motivate" me into paying.

A few days after Pandora announced Pandora One and the new Desktop App to accompany it, the old desktop app become a piece of garbage. Pandora you've done your loyal listeners wrong. Now when I try to use the old desktop application, it simply opens a web browser window. Examples:
- I open the desktop application: Application Opens and Runs then a browser window loads the Pandora web site
- I click the application to skip: song skips and then a new browser window opens to load the Pandora site
- I click to pause, or any other action: action performed and a browser window opens

C'mon Pandora, don't tell me it is a coincidence that your desktop application just suddenly started to do this.

I'm uninstalling the desktop application and uninstalling Pandora on my phone as well. Don't treat your "free" users like third-class citizens. We'll put up with ads, skip limits, time-outs, etc but don't act like you can bully us into paying.

Bye Pandora. Best of luck.

Posted by: Drew at June 4, 2009 10:12 PM

I just subscribed to Pandora one, and I have the Vista Sidebar gadget, will the sidebar gadget play the higher quality sound?

BTW
Pandora Rocks!!!
Thank You

Posted by: MIchael Janes at June 6, 2009 2:52 PM

Not sure if you guys are still reading comments to this, but I just wanted to say the Pandora is the sexiest and most badass music app on the web, period. My 50GB iTunes library has been gathering dust for the past year+ after discovering you guys. I'm at the point where I have to thumbs down maybe one in 25-50 songs... and that's using nothing but Quick Mix! I paid the $36 before I had any idea of PandoraOne being made, and I sure am glad I did! Keep up the great work guys.

Posted by: smi1ey at June 7, 2009 2:37 AM

Alee and the other guys at pandora: Why the hell are you still using this Adobe Air/Flash crap? I wrote a beautiful library and an even more beautiful CLI (see homepage, but I guess you already know...). It shouldn't be too difficult for you to hire someone, who is able to write a GTK/Qt interface. By the way: You can use the entire code *for free*, 'cause it's FLOSS.

Posted by: PromyLOPh at June 7, 2009 12:00 PM

Hi Tom. I've subscribed to Pandora One and am extremely happy with the improved audio quality. Sounds great.

What I'd really like is the option to play only songs I haven't heard before. I use Pandora to discover new music and I really don't hear enough new music when listening to my "Favorites" play list. This problem is compounded by the 6 skip per hour restriction.

It would seem that everyone would benefit from this feature:

1) Pandora listeners be introduced to new music that we'll be more likely to buy than the music we've already thumbed up and (may have already) purchased.

2) Pandora will not have to pay any increase in royalty rates - or will you? You won't be streaming a higher song count so I would think the royalty rates would remain the same.

Please let me know what is preventing the implementation of this feature.

As a side note, my new favorite pay for music site is Lala.com. They let you create playlists and stream songs forever for $.10 per song. They also sell DRM Free mp3's at 256 kpbs for less than iTunes.

It would be great if you could integrate with them for the purchase of either "Web Songs" or mp3's. I buy all of my music through them in an effort to help them succeed.

Thanks for your time and everything you do.

Sincerely,
Justin Cohen

Posted by: Justin Cohen at June 7, 2009 12:17 PM

I'm a big Pandora fan, and this sounds like a great idea, with one problem: I actually like the visual (not audio) ads -- they sometimes have cool stations and a couple of them have been really well designed and actually promoted things I'm interested in.

So, can I upgrade, and have an option to retain the ads in the browser-based player??

Thanks.

Posted by: Mark G at June 7, 2009 2:50 PM

I love you.

Posted by: michelle at June 8, 2009 8:50 AM

When running the desktop client and rating a song on it, my web browser opens up and Pandora begins playing on the browser as well as my desktop client. This appears to be new and I'm guessing it's a bug. It happens every time I rate a song on the client.
Just an FYI that I'm sure you already know about.

BTW I love Pandora and use it quite often. Thank you for all your hard work.

Posted by: Jason at June 8, 2009 8:56 AM

I have to agree with John above, standalone desktop app is great and all, but where is our WMC love? Please tell us it's coming down the pipe!

Posted by: Knick at June 8, 2009 9:32 AM

@mtb--As long as they are signed in under a Pandora One account you can access these features via multiple home computers.

@David--Not sure exactly what you mean but please write to support@pandora.com if the problem persists with a detailed description of the problem.

@Drew--Sorry about that. The fact of the matter is that we no longer support the Beta Desktop App and have not for a while. This was, however, not designed to be in conjunction with the release of Pandora One.

@Michael Janes--Yes! Pandora One listeners can access 192 kbps on the sidebar gadget.

@Justin Cohen--Thanks for these suggestions. We are actually working on ways to increase the diversity of playlists. There isn't one solution as far as we're concerned but in the meantime, you can increase diversity of your stations by decreasing the number of thumbs-up songs in your station's definition. Do this by selecting "Edit station details" underneath the station name.

@Jason--Sorry about that. Please write to support@pandora.com if the problem persists.

Take care,
Alee

Posted by: Alee - Listener Advocate at June 8, 2009 3:20 PM

I've joined Pandora One, and am generally very pleased with the service, but I'd like to suggest one (hopefully simple) modification: For the desktop client, don't make the 'close' button automatically stop the music. If that's not an option, then provide a third button that minimizes the client to tray.

I'm sure I'm not the only Pandora One user who prefers to keep his task bar as clean as possible. When listening to music, I prefer to minimize to tray and go about my business. It's very annoying to start the client, choose a station I like, have it start playing, and then have it stop playing as soon as I 'close' it to minimize the client to the tray.

Anyway, as I say, you already have my money, but this is a small change that would make me (and others, I'm sure) very happy.

Posted by: Vic at June 8, 2009 4:12 PM

P One is fine, but of little use to those of us who run it in the background. I have a separate Mac that feeds the house a/v system, and would find it SO COOL if Pandora could drive the Visualizer from iTunes, or an equivalent display. That said, this is a great service that I'm pleased to get for only $36/year. C'mon people, that's 3 lousy half-racks of piss-poor beer. You're paying those thieves at Comcast or wherever $45-50/month for fat wire.
And you whine about $3/month for a tsunami of tunes? Get a fkn life!

Posted by: Pat Engrissei at June 9, 2009 12:34 AM

I agree with Vic, that would be a great addition. i have tons of windows open all the time and accidentially close Pandora all the time. Other than that I paid for the service, and still love Pandora as much as I ever did.

Posted by: Melanie at June 9, 2009 4:50 AM

I'm a paid subscriber. Thank you for Pandora and Pandora One -- it is so nice to lose the big memory hole created by streaming in a browser. Both my cache and VM thank you as well.

On to suggestions to make a good product great. Many of these are mostly backing up suggestions that are already existent. I also appreciate that part of Pandora's charm is its simplicity. Hopefully these suggestions add to the elegance of Pandora.
* Please provide a FAQ on how to make media keys work when Pandora One is not in focus. This is very important to many.
* Please provide the ability to rate recent history. It seems wrong to rate a song before it is over.
* Please expand upon our ability to rate songs thumbs up/down/none is a little stark for folks interested in the "Music Genome."
* Please provide an interface for power users who rate more than a hundred songs on a station. There are many of us who want to extensively rate.
* Please provide a global option to prevent all songs from playing more than once a day/month. Pandora is a great place to discover new music. This feature would really help. This is all the more important in that Pandora seems to get "stuck" on some songs in the sense that it plays them constantly.

* How about a feature request area with voting?

Many thanks,
Charlie

Posted by: Charlie Balch at June 9, 2009 7:10 AM

Dear Pandora Team:

I love your product I am a paid subsriber of yours but am having difficulties with "Pandora One" it opens sometimes but will not play any sound! Pandora will work in the browser but, not on Pandora One. It worked for the first 3 weeks but not now... Have reloaded it but no joy! Running Vista, RealAudio, Bose on new Asus gamer notebook...

james

Posted by: James at June 9, 2009 9:25 PM

Woot! Been looking for something like this, thanks a ton

Posted by: 17 Inch Laptop Bags at June 10, 2009 1:29 PM

How about single click purchasing through the store of your choice (I'm fine with itunes, but I understand those who want to go a different route)?

Also, it would be stellar if there was a way to toggle on and off a 'filter explicit' option.

Overall, I am thrilled with Pandora and the new Pandora One account. Thanks!

-Brandon

Posted by: Brandon Current at June 11, 2009 12:35 PM

First off, I can't get through my work day without Pandora, so many, many thanks!
I would benefit greatly, & hope others would too, if you had an option for a compact mode vs the full screen.
Can you make that happen? That could be my belated birthday present.
Respectfully,
Aaron Kidd

Posted by: Aaron Kidd at June 12, 2009 9:43 AM

Pandora One is a great deal for such a quality service!!!!
Once I get a job I'll be buying Pandora One. I have a friend who loves it tons.

Thanks Pandora Media!!!! You guys are the best, I get fully immersed in you service it's amazing. It's an addiction. But, not an unhealthy addiction - a healthy one, indeed. :)

Posted by: David at June 13, 2009 10:14 PM

I love the desktop app, but Please add media keys support!

Posted by: D. at June 15, 2009 8:14 PM

Pandora has done an excellent job at providing a wonderful free(ad-supported)service, but I advise caution when moving towards a freemium(free + premium services)business model, because quite often the free services/capabilities tend to decrease, which in turn may jeopardize your relations with a majority of your userbase.

Posted by: Landon W. at June 16, 2009 7:54 AM

Sometimes when I hear a song I really like, I'd like to hit a "replay" key, to hear it again without hopefully hearing it again or purchasing it right now.

Posted by: Gary at June 16, 2009 12:16 PM

w00t! Thanks Pandora.
Despite not offering some of the features I'd like to have now, I'm content with only having a few. I'm glad to see an app that is designed to grown and become better.

I might suggest that, something that might help with some of the duplicate questions that commenters are making you might want to update your blog with additional answers to the common asked questions about the blog entry. This is something that's used rather frequently in many of the blogs I've visited and its helpful to yourself and to those who are reading through the comments.

I'm preparing to sign up for the subscription. I've been using Pandora (free) for a long time. My job decided to block for some time and I've went above and beyond with assistance of additional co-workers to find ways to listen to my music! I never had any interest in paying for Pandora, only because the free version met my needs, and I figured by viewing the ads I was also assisting. However with these new added features, and my fears quelled about being able to use on multiple systems, and OS'es. This just makes me so happy!

Thanks to Pandora I've found a lot of bands that I'm into and I appreciate the change of pace. To be honest, I like that you're not a on demand service or otherwise I'd just listen to the same bands again.

One thing that I think would be great, is aside from perhaps I tunes and Amazon for options for purchasing if you could have a section for others: where additional sites could be listed. you could try and do this in a way to get other sites ( who may not want to pay as much but want the advertising still ) a way of listing and giving your listeners who would like to purchase the music another option. I'm not sure if how you have it set up is due to other factors. I would love to have the ability to choose from the many companies out there that will sell me an artist's CD.

Posted by: @lly at June 16, 2009 6:50 PM

hey @lly

great suggestions - I think a lot of the answers to questions end up in the comments section, and it's definitely harder to pick them out from there - I'll pass the suggestion along.

as the music curator, I'm in total agreement with you about listing other vendors for the music! it's somewhere on the list of things we'd like to do. In the past we've gotten great music from Forced Exposure, Other Music, Aquarius Records, Beatpport (electronic and dance), Parasol, Downtown Music Gallery (NYC avant-garde and jazz music), and tons of other places.

For really hard to find items, gemm.com is great as well.

hope that helps for now.

cheers,
mz

Posted by: Michael Zapruder at June 17, 2009 1:00 PM

Minimize to taskbar tray: I just got Pandora One to minimize by x-ing out from the desktop which pauses it, then right-clicking in the tray and choosing Play.

It will stay like that but only until you touch it again and then you have to go through the whole process again.

Posted by: Annie at June 17, 2009 4:19 PM

I love Pandora...have no problems with desktop sound quality. I would be more than happy to pay this price to be able to use Pandora on a WM5.1 phone...

Posted by: Chuck at June 25, 2009 7:46 AM

Any chance you guys will be encoding 192kbps in AAC? Personally I find AAC to be superior to Mp3 at equal rate.

Thank you.

Posted by: Leo at June 29, 2009 4:45 AM

I Absolutely love Pandora.com , I've been using it since it first launched. I actually just bought the premium membership for Pandora One, and It's WELL WORTH the tiny cost!

Posted by: Omer at July 1, 2009 3:26 AM

what is the url to start the Pandora Mini? Is it really necessary to wait for the app to load from the standard browser window?

Posted by: ro at July 1, 2009 8:53 AM

Upgraded to Pandora One, still getting 64kbps bit rate. I waited a few hours prior to posting this because it states it might take a few songs, well it's been a few hours worth, when does this sucker kick in? I checked the settings, it's set to 192, the desktop app doesn't seem to have any settings.

I have 30mb down stream, so plenty of bandwidth.

Posted by: KlipschHead at July 1, 2009 12:34 PM

ro - Advertisers weren't interested in paying for the simple ads displayed on the minimized tuner. As a result this page was a consistent money-loser for us. It pains us to remove any feature, but in order to preserve the ongoing viability of Pandora as a whole we had to remove this feature from the free service.

The mini tuner and the new cool desktop application are now available as part of the Pandora One upgrade.

leo - In our blind tests AAC+ showed a distinct advantage at lower bit rates but at 192k the difference with MP3 was imperceptible.

rob - We'd like it of AT&T offered the free version of Pandora (supported by advertising) on all types of handsets. Right now some handsets get the ad-supported version and others only get the ad-free subscription.

ryan - The Palm Pre is now supported. Palm models with the Windows Mobile OS may be able to run Pandora someday. However the older Palm OS devices probably won't be getting a Pandora application. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

music love and john - Pandora must pay substantial licensing and streaming costs for each song we stream. The per-track royalty rates have been increasing every year.

It's now millions of dollars per month. In order to provide this service free to listeners we need to generate enough advertising revenue to cover our costs. Advertising pays for the music so you don't have to.

The Audio ads are less than 30 seconds duration and will be capped to just a few per hour. We won't let them take over. It will never be like over-the-air commercial radio.

Don't want any ads at all? You are always welcome to upgrade to Pandora One for $36/year. For less than a dime a day you can remove all forms of advertising from your Pandora experience. It also gives you access to a number of cool features not available with the free version. You can find information on Pandora One at http://www.pandora.com/pandora_one

tim - we are always working on new versions of our applications for devices. Each release version will have more features.

Posted by: Etienne at July 3, 2009 9:49 PM

I'm sold when the audio quality is improved on the mobile stream :)

Posted by: chris at July 6, 2009 7:50 PM

I'm on Linux so I can't buy the app. That too bad.

Posted by: Internet marketing at July 7, 2009 10:23 AM

Hi,
I just received the email regarding Pandora heavy use options. I have to say that considering the use I get out of Pandora and how much I enjoy it I'm more than happy to pay for Pandora 1 (seriously, 3 bucks a month!!). I can't understand why some folks are complaining.

Anyway, my only concern was the fact that I use Linux as my Operating System but it sounds like this may not be an issue. Let me know if there are any special download/install steps that I need and I'll look forward to using Pandora 1.

Thanks for a GREAT service that I truly enjoy!!

Posted by: John at July 7, 2009 8:33 PM

LINUX: It works (Fedora 11 32bit)!!!

Thanks Pandora / Adobe.

Posted by: equilibric at July 7, 2009 10:01 PM

Although i'm extremely upset that after just subscribing, it appears I still can't skip more than 6 songs an hour, I understand the garbage the recording industry puts you through. What I don't understand, however, is why you simply don't have a button that I can press which ensures the next song is one I have not heard.

That's my biggest worry with the skips, that now I have to listen to 10 or 15 songs that I've already checked before I can hear a new one... that is what gets under my skin the most, each and everytime I open my pandora app or go on a site I have to listen over and over to the same songs on the station I've spent so much time perfecting for the exact reason of hearing NEW songs! Please just add a button for me to just hear new songs next that I havn't checked or reviewed yet! Thank you.

Posted by: Arman at July 7, 2009 10:13 PM

Hello, any chance pandora one has lastfm integration ? I really need my srobbling.

Posted by: Darrin at July 8, 2009 5:05 AM

I run Pandora One fine under Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Workstation 5.2. Adobe Air and the Pandora app installed without any hitches.

An FYI for all of you out there behind a corporate firewall / proxy :

I run Pandora manually from a terminal; but prior to running the binary, I have to export our proxy information to the environment variable http_proxy.

For example:

1. export http_proxy='http://localproxy.com:8080/'
2. /opt/Pandora/bin/Pandora

This works great.

Cheers,
phoenix

Posted by: phoenix at July 8, 2009 8:37 AM

I love the availability of the higher quality streams! That alone is worth the cost of the subscription.
However, there are some areas of the AIR application that I think could be improved. First off I think it would be beneficial to have global shortcuts (like in the OpenPandora application). Secondly I think it would be kind of cool to have tabs in the application so that users can view all the song info and band bios, like the "About the Music" stuff.
Also in general I wish there was a way to get around the 6 song skip limit per hour, but I understand it's difficult for you guys in that area so it's not a big deal.
Great service, sucks that you guys have to deal with all this craziness from the RIAA, but you guys are being champs about it!

Posted by: richsr16 at July 8, 2009 3:24 PM

I got the pandora one player working on Ubuntu 9.04 x64. It's good, but has a ways to go. For starters, it relies on a desktop that supports icons. i.e. you can move the player around in openbox, but it works fine in gnome.

Second, I my big issue, is that this player has an 80MB footprint. Really guys? 80 MB? that's more than the OS kernel and X window system combined! Sure, it only consumes 1% CPU, but you gotta cut down the mem usage. Then again, this may be the fault of adobe air (i've never used air apps before), in which case shame on them...

My only other suggestion is have it minimize to the dock and not the panel. Again, this could be an Adobe Air quirk.

Posted by: Chris at July 8, 2009 4:01 PM

Love the desktop app.
I realize it is v1.0 but..
Changes I'd like to see
-Working global hotkeys is a must. I paid for no ads so I'd like to play games and use my pause and next buttons.
-Ability to customize OSD: which corner to display in, how large, maybe some templates
-Customizable interface
-Maybe an api for theming the app
-Logitech LCD keyboard app?

Posted by: Beau Brower at July 8, 2009 8:33 PM

I use linux both at work and at play... A Pandora version that was specifically tuned for cross-platform use would be very nice. As it stands, I'm hesitant to pay a subscription when I can't be assured that Pandora One will work on the many platforms I use..

Posted by: LinuxUser at July 10, 2009 11:45 PM

Any word on the 192KB streaming rate for users of the Squeezebox?

Posted by: Kelly Ford at July 11, 2009 10:05 PM

A few suggestions for the Pandora One desktop app:
(some can be seen today in the OpenPandora app)
1. Indicate which station this song came from when in Quick Mix mode.
2. The ability to edit the Quick Mix station from the Pandora One interface.
3. I second all the requests for weights in the Quick Mix "mixing".

Thanks for a great service!

Posted by: Adoram at July 14, 2009 3:09 AM

I just bought the pandora one subscription in order to use the desktop application and avoid the 40hour limit (I'm surprised I didnt get there 50 hours into the month) and I have so far been disappointed with the desktop Air app. There are two things that make using this application frustrating:

-I cannot minimize to the tray. I prefer to keep a clean taskbar, and that means that programs which I have running without needing interaction should be able to go off my taskbar and 'hide' in the notification icons (winXP/vista by the way).

-Scrolling back to see previous songs. If I hear a song that i really like but am in the middle of something else, chances are good that I wont be thumb'ing that song before it is done. Other times I may want to see what songs I missed while I step away from my computer - a trivial situation, but one that the standard player handles.

I guess what I'm getting at here is 'please consider making these changes happen.' I've seen them a few times higher up this comment page, along with some others, so are they maybe in the pipe to be pushed out in a big 2.0 version or something?

Thanks for reading,
Bob

Posted by: Bob at July 14, 2009 7:14 AM

If I absolutely, positively, cannot add a band to a station, is that because you have no licensing agreement with their label and I should give up trying? For example: I've been trying to add The Skoidats to my Ska station since I discovered you 6 mos. ago. When I search for it to add, it says it can't find it, but then says "sorry we'll search for it." But I check in once a month, and no dice...

Posted by: hirnrissigermann at July 15, 2009 12:39 AM

Having the fake growl message is nice but I would much rather have real growl messages that use the growl api. You can use real growl message from Air apps, please do!

Posted by: David at July 16, 2009 10:59 AM

I'd like to second the question about 192KB streaming rate for users of the Squeezebox. I primarily listen to Pandora via my Squeezebox, and upgraded to a paid account specifically to access a higher quality stream on that device. I'm sure you understand my frustration at discovering I still only receive 128K when accessing Pandora via the Squeezebox.

Is this something that you are working on? Or perhaps Logitech is fixing from their end?

Thank you for any information.

Keith

Posted by: Keith at July 16, 2009 6:45 PM

I really miss the pop out player :(

Posted by: 4n14 at July 17, 2009 7:26 AM

"3) It doesn't let me see the past songs - On the website application, you can go alllllll the way back to when you first started listening, and give thumbs up and down all you want. In fact, I usually use this feature to thumbs-down songs without using my skips. With the desktop application, all you can see is the song that you just listened to, which is disappointing, especially if I want to thumbs-up a song that just ended! There is no way to get to it except for waiting for it to play again, and that can be very frustrating."
I agree this is a needed feature.

Posted by: Pete at July 22, 2009 6:12 AM

Love Pandora on my Samsung Blu-ray player. Can I stream 192kbps to it if I upgrade?

If so, I'm upgrading...

Posted by: Ted Pin at July 22, 2009 10:44 AM

Really, this app does support Linux, almost any distro. Even 64-bit. AIR is providing the abstraction layer!

It is absolutely trivial to install in Linux, just d/l the AIR installer from Adobe, set it to executable (chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin) and run it. after it installs, find the AIR installer utility (Applications -> Accessories on my system) and load the Pandora AIR install file that you get from this site. 100% works.

-Alex, who tried to work for Pandora but they weren't interested.

Posted by: Alex Davis at July 23, 2009 12:54 PM

Love the iPhone app, don't mind the ads, skip limits, or playback limit.

But I would upgrade in a heartbeat if you added 192kbps streaming to the iPhone.

Please, please make this happen.

Posted by: Matt Reinhard at July 23, 2009 3:54 PM

Why is it that your competitor, Slacker Radio, can offer unlimited skips, with they're premium subscription, but Pandora can not? I have a Blackberry, so the there will always be the ongoing Pandora Vs Slacker debate, but with slackers unlimited skips, it wins. Can you share any insite?

Posted by: Nicholas at July 24, 2009 6:47 AM

I just discovered today morning that there was something called Pandora One. Took me about 1 second to decide I want to upgrade, about 10 minutes to do the upgrade. You really need to do a better job of making the upgrade link work without requiring users to disable the pop up blocker first. Why dissuade people who already decide to pay up? Just redirect to a normal page. It took me a while to turn off my ad blocker and popup blocker to get to see the page about upgrade features.

That brings me to point #2. I absolutely love Pandora. Would have upgraded a long time back if I had known about the 192 KBS option. Forwarding the low bit rate stream over AirFoil to my wonderful Vienna Acoustics speakers was too low quality an experience that meant I was not using Pandora as much as I might have had I known about the paid option. Now I have the 192 KBS stream on my nice speakers and it sounds OK.

You need to do a better job of making the option really visible on the front page (without being in my face and disrupting the user experience).

A Mac App that can do AirTunes without using Airfoil would be great so I can stream straight to my receiver! But I guess that might be asking for too much.

Posted by: B M at August 1, 2009 1:49 PM

Another vote for 192k streams via the Squeezebox. It's the main way I am accessing Pandora and I was a little disappointed that Pandora One doesn't extend that bitrate to these players (especially since they usually sit in environments with better audio equipment where the additional 64k actually do make a really audible difference).

Looking forward to this hopefully being fixed soon.

Sebastian

Posted by: Sebastian Schreiner at August 2, 2009 2:35 PM

First of all, let me just say that Pandora is just phenomenal. I would like to be able to get Pandora One, but my only possible payment option would be PayPal. So my question is, will PayPal become a payment option in the foreseeable future?

Posted by: Charlie at August 4, 2009 12:36 PM

Is there a way to integrate Pandora One and misic I already have on my computer? I'd love to be able to take advantage of the Pandora algorithm for playing the music I already own. Are there any thoughts to adding this feature into Pandora One? If I could utilize a Pandora driven media player I'n never have to open iTunes again.

Posted by: Eric at August 7, 2009 1:42 PM

Please add last.fm integration!

Another thing I'd love to see in the standalone app - the "move to another station" option that we have in the browser version. I use this feature a lot!

Posted by: Maree at August 8, 2009 6:31 PM

Would like to know if there will be any upgrades to Pandora One Desktop App to show playtime of the song or time left as it does when you stream through the web site. Also will there ever be compatablity for Pandora One Desktop App to work on multimedia keyboards like logitech G11, G15, and G19. Other then those two complaints I love Pandora One and the little gadgets.

Posted by: Shawn at August 12, 2009 11:34 AM

Here's the steps I used to install the Pandora app:

1. Download the adobe air app
2. In the terminal go to the directory where the bin file is located
3. Type this command:
chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
4. Type this command:
sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
5: Type this command to allow for installation of .air files:
sudo cp /usr/lib/libadobecertstore.so /usr/lib32
6. Download the pandora .air file
7. Double click the pandora .air to install (I might have made the pandora .air file executable before I tried to install, I don't remember now)
8. You're done, enjoy :-D

Reference:
http://www.adoleo.com/blog/2009/apr/5/installing-adobe-air-ubuntu-jaunty-64-bit/

Posted by: Stephanie at August 12, 2009 5:55 PM

I am new to pandora but have enjoyed it immensley since my friend told me about it... keep up the great work!

Posted by: Justin at August 26, 2009 10:14 AM

too bad that is a paid service,I like it a lot.

Posted by: licitatii at August 28, 2009 1:21 PM

Dear tom

is there any way that listeners on pandora one can get more skips per hour?

deme

Posted by: demetrio vaena at August 31, 2009 9:06 PM

Pandora is pretty sweet. The upgrade option is for sure worth it.

Posted by: Anonymous at September 6, 2009 8:05 PM

Thank god for Pandora :-D

Posted by: Justin at September 6, 2009 10:34 PM

Definitely waiting for 192kbps on the iPhone before I upgrade...

Posted by: RRF at September 8, 2009 4:35 PM

My good friend uses Pandora, and I've been meaning to sign up. Well, the time has come. I've heard so many great things about Pandora, and with the $3/m, you can't go wrong.

Posted by: Frank at September 10, 2009 6:37 PM

iPhone 192kb (or some level of improved sound) and I'll subscribe in an instant. I mostly listen over iphone...

Posted by: Sam at September 10, 2009 8:51 PM

Great job folks. I LOVE pandora, and it seems to be getting only better with time! Keep up the good job! :)

Posted by: Patricia Ryans at September 16, 2009 6:54 AM

Almost Pandora! I would love to subscribe, the stand alone client is ALMOST worth the price, but the fact that I can't skip as many songs as I want kills it for me. So close though.

Posted by: Ron at September 21, 2009 10:17 AM

Got it running pretty easily in Linux Mint. Had some issues finding out how to launch it (go to your Pandora One/bin folder and ./pandora to get it to work. Built a launcher for Docky so now it's transparent. Love it.

Would LOVE to see what others have suggested in a future release:
1) Scrobbing with last.fm
2) Please let me move the song notifier popup to somewhere else on the desktop!

To the naysayers -- innovation is worth the price. Pandora started this radio-on-demand concept and has been at the forefront of the licensing fight. Pay if you can.

Posted by: chow at September 26, 2009 10:14 AM

When the Pandora One app fully supports Last.fm, it'll be worth the money I spent on it. Until then it's meh.

Posted by: Joel at September 26, 2009 5:31 PM

After being away from Pandora for a while, I'm glad to be back. Instead of using Windows, I decided to use Ubuntu which was a little clunky at first but the great tips above (especially links for AdobeAIR install how to) were gems.

Posted by: Anonymous at September 27, 2009 7:18 AM

Although doing this on the free version would be understandably impossible,for Pandora One, maybe being able to rewind, or at least fast forward through a song would be a nice feature. Another thing I would like to see is incorporation into Songbird digital music player, as was done with last.fm. Songbird is open source, and I'm sure would welcome Pandora. (I'm not talking about making Pandora open source, as that would be impossible, but simply fusing it into songbird, which doubles as a web browser, possibly making combining the two easier)

Posted by: John at September 28, 2009 9:07 PM

I've been missing Pandora in the UK since you turned it off. I'll happily pay twice what I did or more for the subscription, there's nothing else like it yet.

Posted by: Adam at September 29, 2009 1:40 PM

Bring back Pandora in the UK!! I should start a facebook petition :)

Posted by: Siphoner at October 3, 2009 12:57 AM

hey, just wondering if anyone knows if there's a version of Pandora that works on the new Mac OS?

jim

Posted by: Jim Yaghi at October 6, 2009 3:04 PM

great work guys, I love this program. Like Siohoner, I would like to see it more accessible to the UK though

Posted by: Duncan at October 10, 2009 7:27 AM

Alright, holiday season is coming up and I want to purchase Pandora One as a gift for 7 of my family members. I purchased Pandora One for myself only a few days ago and absolutely love it, I've been telling everyone I know about it. I agree with the others that a Gift option is critical, especially with the holiday season coming around the corner. You honestly couldn't ask for a better feature, as those who have purchased Pandora One are most likely some of your most loyal fans... so why not give us an easy way to share our love for Pandroa this holiday season then by letting us purchase Pandora One gifts for all our friends and family? If I were in your marketing department I would be pushing this like crazy!

And on the topic of Pandora Gifts.. you should look into partnering with online retailers who are looking for gifts to hand out with sweepstakes, contests etc. As you know, Amazon Gift Cards are the norm these days.. I think a Pandora One gift would be a nice way to mix it up... who doesn't like to listen to their favorite music?

Posted by: Nick at October 12, 2009 8:54 AM

In addition to allowing Pandora One gifts.. I really like your station gift concept:
http://www.pandora.com/station_gift

It would be great if users giving Pandora One gifts could also load it up with some of their favorite stations.

Posted by: Nick at October 12, 2009 10:26 AM

On Pandora One, if I have an extended pause, when I return the song will die after about 30 seconds with a dropped connection. Clicking the reconnect button solves it, except the song is killed and a skip is generated, I am sure.

Posted by: Andrew at October 13, 2009 11:39 AM

Well it was nice while it lasted, but if I have to pay for something I can get for free...well what do you expect...goodbye Pandora One...I'm heading back to OpenPandora.

Posted by: josh at October 15, 2009 11:30 PM

Just upgraded to Pandora One and loving it so far.

One request - an "Always on top" option for the desktop app would be awesome.

Posted by: Heath at October 17, 2009 8:11 AM

Does the G1 get high bit rate if I upgrade to Pandora One, or is that just for the desktop app?

Posted by: Olga at October 23, 2009 7:50 AM

@Olga: I think it's just for the desktop app, but I could be wrong...

Posted by: freekeno at October 27, 2009 8:12 AM

did someone answer the question on whether or not it works with Mac?

Posted by: Andrew Abouna at October 27, 2009 9:33 AM

I like Pandora, but I would only upgrade to a premium service if there was a trial.

Please get a trial working asap.

Posted by: Gautama at October 28, 2009 11:06 AM

This new desktop app is a real gem. I can get work done without crashing and a restart.

Thanks!

Posted by: Mike Collins at October 30, 2009 3:43 PM

I want the feature to show in windows live messenger "what i am listening now" feature, please with this feature i will really love pandora.

Posted by: pedro at October 31, 2009 2:58 PM

Just subscribed today for Pandora One. Love what you all do and want you to continue to exist so I paid the $36. Love you guys. Thank you for providing us with an amazing user experience.

Posted by: Kevin Poirier at November 3, 2009 2:36 AM

Pandora is excellent application for the streaming of music.I am impressed with new features added in the Pandora one.

Posted by: Cables at November 4, 2009 1:21 AM

I really live Pandora. I even upgraded to the paid version and have no regrets. I find it much better than Slacker.

Posted by: Masterbuilt Butterball Electric Turkey Fryer at November 4, 2009 7:44 AM

I really love Pandora, it is my primary source of music.

My only issue with your service is the lack of an API. This service just screams for being integrated with other apps/services in creative ways (e.g. iTunes, Amazon MP3, IM clients, Twitter), but you can't today. I for one would gladly pay twice as much for the Pandora One service if you would just expose an API.

Posted by: Andrew at November 4, 2009 5:53 PM

Honestly speaking, I haven't head of this software. Let me look more into to see if it is something I need to get.

Posted by: How to Make money at November 5, 2009 9:08 AM

Any plans to offer 384kbps streaming to home audiophile devices? I would gladly pay $$$ for that service!

Posted by: Joe at November 7, 2009 7:42 AM

Will Pandora One work outside the US?

Posted by: Michael at November 10, 2009 9:28 AM

I started using Pandora when I got my Palm Pre.

I was very happy with what Pandora provided!

Now I use it on my desktop computer as well.

Keep it up, and thanks!

Posted by: sonyslave at November 11, 2009 12:51 AM

Ah!!! at last I found what I was looking for. Somtimes it takes so much effort to find even tiny useful piece of information.
Nice post. Thanks

Posted by: Car Insurance Guy at November 11, 2009 6:46 AM

is it a tv or somethin O_O

Posted by: Luna Online at November 12, 2009 5:06 PM

Just subscribed today for Pandora One. I loved Pandora right from the start couple of years ago!

Posted by: Download at November 16, 2009 1:24 PM

And on the topic of Pandora Gifts.. you should look into partnering with online retailers who are looking for gifts to hand out with sweepstakes, contests etc. As you know, Amazon Gift Cards are the norm these days.. I think a Pandora One gift would be a nice way to mix it up... who doesn't like to listen to their favorite music?

Posted by: Acai Berry Colon Cleanse at November 16, 2009 6:35 PM

Pandora is one of my favorite phone apps. It is amazing and I have loved your software for years!

Posted by: Justin Goodwin at November 17, 2009 2:42 AM

I am very happy with Pandora One. It is totally worth $36 for me. However the app is severly limited and slightly buggy. For the first two weeks I used it my space bar was pause and play, now it's skip, I don't know how that happened. A solution which I would hope for is a preference set that allows the user to attached shortcut keys (hopefully globally) so that no matter what program I am in I can pause, play, skip, thumb up, thumb down, and bookmark a current song.

Posted by: MIlo at November 17, 2009 1:49 PM

When training a station I use the skip/thumb down button extensively. If the station isn't learning fast enough then it is really annoying to hit a skip cap. I just upgraded and hit the cap in 10 minutes. Then I basically have to listen to music I don't like and doesn't fit what I am trying to ask for. Obviously that is what you guys work on optimizing, but what about doing an express station learning routine for paid users where the next 20 songs are displayed that will be selected based on what you currently know about the preferences of the station owner. In most cases I will already know if I like the song for the station or not and could eliminate it from the playlist prior to it being selected (no charge for you, no annoyance for me). Am I missing something?

Posted by: ryan wilson at November 18, 2009 10:49 AM

@Olga, @Freekeno
The 192kbps bitrate is available on the web and in the desktop player for Pandora One subscribers. It's not yet available for mobile or in-home devices.

@Andrew
We have no plans to release an API at this stage, but thanks for the feedback.

@Andrew Abouna
Yes, the Desktop Player is compatible with Macs.

@Michael
Unfortunately, no. Legally offering Pandora services to listeners outside of the United States is a top priority for us, and we're working out the details as fast as we can. Audio content streaming regulations differ from country to country, and we are working on acquiring the proper licenses to accommodate them.

@Joe
No plans at the moment, but thanks for sharing your support for such a feature with us.

Ryan

Posted by: Ryan, Pandora Support at November 18, 2009 6:03 PM

I just downloaded the desktop version. how did I ever live without this!

Posted by: Zhu Zhu Pets at November 20, 2009 9:28 AM

I also suggest a holiday option. I would love to give this as a gift to family and friends. Keep up the great work Pandora!

Posted by: Preston Parrett at November 20, 2009 3:03 PM

I'll join the chorus of people wanting a gift option for Pandora one!

Posted by: andrew at November 24, 2009 1:07 PM

@ryan wilson
I understand your frustration, but the 6 skip per hour limit is a legal requirement of our licensing fees. We simply can't remove it, even for paid subscribers. It sounds like you might have to experiment a little more with finding the right station seeds. Is it possible that you've added a very large number of seeds to your station? That can result in too much variety. Experiment with creating a new station based on a single artist. Hope this helps!

Posted by: Ryan, Pandora Support at November 24, 2009 2:38 PM

It will be good if we have more than six skips per hour.

Posted by: Lung Cancer at November 26, 2009 10:39 PM

192kps on in home devices just makes sense. My computer doesn't have the sound quality that my Onkyo receiver hooked up to Infinity speakers does. Or my Squeezebox Transporter->Lin Amplifier->B&W speakers. I've already paid lots of money to make these systems sound good. I'd pay a little more to make Pandora take advantage of them.

Posted by: John Ruttenberg at December 2, 2009 6:16 AM

First thing first I'm so glad that Pandora is no longer tied down to my web browse... the desktop audio quality is excellent and the interface is absolutely gorgeous 10/10 guys...

Diane Gale

Posted by: Pitbull Training at December 3, 2009 3:06 PM

Any updates on the "move to another station" option for the Pandora One desktop app? This is the only thing I miss about the browser version!

Posted by: Natalie at December 5, 2009 7:15 AM

Aw, there's no way to gift a subscription yet? Wanted to put it on my wish list, as well as gift one to a friend.

Posted by: Kevin Drum at December 6, 2009 6:55 PM

I agree with the others that a Gift option is critical, especially with the holiday season coming around the corner. You honestly couldn't ask for a better feature, as those who have purchased Pandora One are most likely some of your most loyal fans..

Posted by: adam at December 8, 2009 3:25 PM

For example, I am trying to build a radio station which plays Irish folk songs. I have given a thumbs up to every song which plays because it has Irish roots, and a thumbs down to every song that plays because it has folk roots. Yet I keep getting songs with folk roots.

It would be nice to have a check box to narrow down even more what I am looking for when I give a thumbs up or down.

Posted by: momyweb at December 9, 2009 12:25 PM

If I weren't that frugal...
Anyways, that looks great!

Posted by: Red Toaster at December 9, 2009 6:51 PM

I really like the free app, and will probably buy it because...I went through this entire blog to see everyone's comments, which were all pretty complimentary. I am also impressed that you respond to everybody's concerns - that's a seldom seen pro move, and that influenced my decision as well.

My suggestion is that it would be a sweet business move to offer a trial of say 3 months for $10. And if you like it, you renew for the remaining 9 months at $26. You would bring more people into the fold.

Posted by: Diets That Work at December 9, 2009 8:18 PM

I heard a story about Pandora and the Music Genome Project on NPR once. It fascinated me that a group of people were cataloging every song in a scientific manner as they are. I was fascinated at once and have been a loyal listener since. Definitely one of the best things about the internet for me!

Posted by: Michelle at December 10, 2009 2:04 PM

I would very much so like it if it were free or even had a demo version.

Posted by: Mohnster at December 10, 2009 3:23 PM

Ack, no way to gift Pandora One? Double plus ungood! :(

Posted by: barb dybwad at December 11, 2009 4:04 PM

I will be buying Pandora Uno as a gift for my significant other this Holiday and while the lack of a gift option means I have to basically roll my own you guys should really have implemented this by now if it's in your financial best interestes to sell annual subs.

Keep up the good work! Adios hombres.

Posted by: hmurchison at December 12, 2009 7:47 PM

@TomConrad

I understand you guys are in a DavidVGoliath situation with the recording industry and it basically gets to set the terms of licensing agreement, but it seems ridiculous to have to pay royalties on a song that <30 seconds were played. A royalty after 30 seconds makes sense, but before does not. Compare it to Amazon MP3 or itunes where you can listen to a 30-sec clip for free before deciding to buy. I hope Amazon and Apple aren't paying royalties for the samples and I don't see why Pandora should either.

Posted by: Topher at December 13, 2009 4:11 PM

I almost was ready to subscribe to pandora one, when I heard the news of only 6 skips per hour. It seems there is no way around this due to laws. The only reason I want more skips is when I am using the quick mix, and I keep getting songs I don't want to listen to. I guess I will settle with what I have then!

Does disliking a song (thumbs down) count as a skip?

Posted by: pandora user at December 13, 2009 9:56 PM

I wanted to purchase Pandora One for a Christmas gift for someone. Can I purchase it for their email address and let it upgrade on Christmas day?

Posted by: Ryan Mercer at December 15, 2009 8:56 PM

I'll join the chorus of people wanting a gift option for Pandora one!

Ill second that!

Posted by: Fire Extinguishers at December 16, 2009 12:42 AM

We really need 192Kb/s for Squeezebox. That is my primary listing device and is hooked to some HiFi gear. 128 just isn't cutting it. I'll subscribe to Pandora One as soon as you support high bit rate for Squeezebox

Posted by: Bryan at December 16, 2009 4:55 PM

just a suggestion for the site. i really like to be able to help and sometime i see adds that im interested in but as soon as i give a thumbs up or down for a song they go away and i can't see them anymore.

I think it would be great if you could have back/forward button for ads. specially that each add sets the theme in pandora this would give you a great opportunity to let your users see more adds without being too intrusive by just letting them to play with it.

Also i hope that you have a system of figuring out what ads your user likes and dislikes and show relevant ads based on that.

other than that great job and happy holidays!

Posted by: Sina at December 19, 2009 12:06 PM

Where are the admins response to the cry of giving Pandora as a gift. I would also like to express my desire to give pandora as a gift. I don't care if it's not pretty, just give me a "good" way to give the gift of Pandora.

-mpare

Posted by: mpare at December 19, 2009 7:31 PM

Pandora is such a great resource and it's just getting better as time passes. What a great product!

Posted by: Ryan Pitylak at December 20, 2009 5:20 PM

Feature Request: Allow the Play/Pause button on my Mac keyboard to control the Pandora desktop application.

Posted by: Deg at December 22, 2009 11:44 AM

I am very happy with Pandora One! Totally worth $36 for me..

Posted by: Angela at December 24, 2009 2:58 AM

I paid for the year membership but recently was married to a Japanese girl and moved to Japan.

Now when I go to access it says blocked.

If you are a paid member then you should be able to access the service.

Further if a user can prove they are an American Citizen then the service should be allowed.

I smell a lawsuit coming.

Posted by: Matt Lawson at December 25, 2009 7:36 AM

No problem at all using the Pandora desktop app in Linux (OpenSUSE 11.1 x86_64). The Pandora One desktop app is written in Adobe AIR which by design is able to work on Windows, Mac, Linux.

Posted by: Ron S at December 29, 2009 7:09 AM

Big Pandora fan here! About to upgrade two accounts to Pandora One. But...

I am holding off upgrading to Pandora One on two accounts until we can confirm that the 192 bitrate will be delivered to our 3 SqueezeBox devices! Based on comments above, I am not clear.

So if it doesn't work yet, this is another vote in favor of making sure that SqueezeBox devices get the full benefit of Pandora One, specifically on the stream size.

thanks

Posted by: Scott Fraser at December 31, 2009 7:21 AM

Another request for 192 kbps using a Squeezebox - I'll gladly pay for Pandora One when this is possible.

I know Pandora is planning/working to make this possible.

Any updates?

I would be willing to pay an even higher fee for a lossless (flac) stream. That would be tremendous for folks that listen on nice home systems or nice headphones.

By the way, I just started using Pandora and am really enjoying it so far. Thanks!

Posted by: Adam at December 31, 2009 9:18 AM

Well I'm a little bummed out. I got a squeezebox for Christmas and I found out that I couldn't stream the 192kbps streams that I've payed for. I was really looking forward to enjoying the convenience of these two services/systems on a stereo where the difference in quality is actually quite noticeable. If you guys are reading these comments please mark down another vote for this particular feature request. Thanks.

Posted by: Stefan at January 1, 2010 11:00 AM

is there ant chance that you can set this up to work via http proxy

Posted by: mike at January 1, 2010 6:33 PM

I am still not really happy with the skins of pandora.Nevertheless lot of efforts have been put in. On the lighter side I would love to have a skin of Pandora (yeah The Avatar Pandora)

Posted by: Nivedha Manoharan at January 4, 2010 12:59 PM

@barb, hmurchinson, Ryan, Fire Extinguishers, and everyone who has requested the ability to give Pandora One as a gift -- Thanks for the feedback. Gifting Pandora One is definitely on our radar, and we're keeping it in mind for the future.

@demetrio -- At the moment, providing unlimited skips is not a viable option for us, even for our subscribers. One the positive side, Pandora One removes the daily 12 skip limit (the 6 skips per hour / per station limit remains in place).

@Topher -- You can also listen to 30 second clips of songs on Pandora Backstage (http://www.pandora.com/backstage) -- we don't pay royalties on these. It's trickier when it comes to the streaming of a complete song. Since the files that stream on your Pandora Stations contain the song in its entirety, we are required by law to treat them as having played in their entirety, even if you skip or turn off the player before they've finished. This is not the case when the file only contains a short excerpt of the song.

@pandora user -- Yes, giving a thumbs down does count as a skip.

@Bryan -- Thanks for your feedback. We're aware of demand for higher bitrates on in-the-home devices and it's definitely on our list as an important Feature Request.

@Sina -- Thanks for the suggestion!

Posted by: Ryan, Pandora Support at January 4, 2010 5:23 PM

So even thought it's a paying service now, I still can't get it in Canada? What's preventing you from creating Pandora.ca and setting up shop here...? It's not like we're across the ocean or anything. You say that you want to appeal to international customers, what about your neighbours as a trial run?

Posted by: largest stasr at January 5, 2010 1:20 PM

Hello,

I just found your service. I really like it. I upgraded to get rid of the monthly song limit and have higher sq. Problem is I use Pandora on walks and I use my Windows Mobile phone to do so. I wanted to get a better sq from my phone. I've read in your FAQ that higher SQ on mobile devices are not available . Do you know when / if HQ audio will be available on Windows Mobile phones also is there a separate volume control for the app? My system volume can't go loud enough.

Thanks

Posted by: xmusicianguy at January 6, 2010 3:04 PM

I created a BB King channel and it's INCREDIBLE. I haven't heard such a great mix of blues in over 30 years. I sat stunned at my PC listening to BB King, Albert King, Mississippi John Hurt, Lil Buck Sinegal, and a world of others, just like I was back in the blues haunts from my youth in the 60s. It was PERFECT. From the old Sun and Stax and Verve and other labels. I felt like I'd entered a time warp.

Posted by: Dick at January 8, 2010 8:59 PM

Why does the desktop app chew up loads of CPU when displayed? It seems to take almost all of my CPU on the machine I use for music and such.

NOTE: when MINIMIZED the CPU usage is just fine.

Posted by: James at January 13, 2010 3:31 PM

Is pandora one compatible with my blackberry curve 8320?

Posted by: todd at January 13, 2010 9:01 PM

So does this open up Pandora for UK listeners, if we pay the subscription for pandora one?

Posted by: Richard Smith at January 14, 2010 9:36 AM

Hi,

I signed up for Pandora One many months ago in order to stream 192 kbps music through my Squeezebox. Very disappointed when I found the transmission limited to 128 kbps. Still waiting (and love the service, otherwise)-- but probably won't renew if upgrade is not made.

Posted by: Richard at January 14, 2010 6:41 PM

I'm very happy to have upgraded: if for no other reason than to "put my money where my mouth is" when it comes to paying to avoid advertising :-).

That said, I have a feature request: In the browser-based player, it's easy to share a song or station via Facebook, Twitter or email. on the standalone desktop player, it seems that the only choice is email. I wanted to share the joy of Dave Grisman's "Dawg's Bull" from "Hot Dawg" with my online friends, but couldn't do it from Pandora|One.

As long as I'm making work for you, it would also be a fine and pleasant thing to be able to share a song, album, artist or station via Facebook and Twitter from a page like this one: .

Basically, put that music-sharing love all over the place.

Posted by: Dave Land at January 15, 2010 1:03 PM

I will buy this when it works with AirTunes. I don't want to buy AirFoil.

Posted by: hoteipdx at January 16, 2010 8:49 AM

Me too on the android. I noticed that there's no official response to requests for the android app. please respond. I'll sign up right now if there's a response in the affirmative.

Posted by: Jon at January 18, 2010 3:18 PM

I would definitely upgrade to Pandora One if I could get 192Kb streaming on my iPod Touch/iPhone.

Posted by: Ken Liu at January 25, 2010 11:25 AM

So I just signed up for Pandora One and was really hoping I could save my quick mixes. We should be able to click multiple stations and SAVE our own station and title it whatever we want. I like different mixes depending on my mood, and it would be nice to have them set up before hand. Thanks

Posted by: Desi at January 28, 2010 1:25 AM

I really like Pandora, and will probably buy it because...the free app is amazing and you have great support here. I like that you are part of the whole discussion - Great job.
Is there a way to try the paid version, before purchasing?


Posted by: Natascha at January 29, 2010 2:48 PM

This isn't "unlimited skips." It's 6x24=144 skips per day, if you can manage to sit in front of the computer for 24 hours, using your 6 skips every hour. So, in the theoretical abstract 12 times more than you get with free, but still not unlimited--and not very practical to utilize. Please don't give us "Verizon Math" when it comes to what "unlimited" means.

That's not how people listen to music. We want to sit down, and use Pandora to audition recommended music, a bunch at a time--as, most likely, we won't like a good amount of it.

I'd pay significantly more--$100/year? $200/year (in $50 quarterly chargers)? More? for the ability to skip as many tracks within an hour as I'd like.

I think you'd make money in the end, most subscribers wouldn't be able to utilize it at heavy enough rates that they would compensate for the handful of people walking around constantly streaming music with a CDMA pocket router and a boombox.

The heaviest use would be for in-car listening, and that's limited to a few hours a day for most people.

And if you could capture enough of that market, you could inject ads into the stream during primetime and make money that way. That's big money.

Be creative! I want truly unlimited Pandora, and I'll jump through a hoop or two to get it.

Posted by: DAF at January 31, 2010 10:27 AM

Just a quick addendum--

if you can get away with playing a 30 second clip before paying (as mentioned above), then why not have an "audition mode" built into the applet version of Pandora that lets you "train" Pandora by screening these free-to-play samples to generate/improve your stations? That would get my subscription, even if it's not a true solution to the problem of skip limits.

Just an idea.

Posted by: DAF at January 31, 2010 10:37 AM

First of all, let me say how much I appreciate Pandora. It is an amazing music discovery engine, with options that let one choose his or her favorite station based on his or her favorite band or genre.

The only thing that i would wish to see incorporated into Pandora (or possibly just Pandora One if anything) is a feature that narrows down the music that funnels to your computer or iPhone based on what one would rate songs. I have several channels set in Pandora that sometimes play tracks that arent to my liking and sometimes even play songs that aren't even in the same genre. I know that this system might never be able to be perfect, but some form of it would probably raise customer satisfaction.

Posted by: Jake at February 3, 2010 9:24 PM

Glad to finally see a desktop option available for an online radio player. I sometimes run so many tabs in my browser I need to close it down to clear my mind -- and there goes my internet radio along with it.

Posted by: Aaron Howard at February 12, 2010 7:25 AM

A lot of people have raised this, but the answers have not been very informative. Why isn't there 192 kbps for Squeezebox? Will there be 192 kbps for Squeezebox? Is there any way to get 192 kbps from a laptop to better speakers? Thank you.

Posted by: Aaron at February 12, 2010 8:08 PM

One more note to echo others' sentiments: Just bought Pandora One yesterday and love it. Have been using Pandora (free) for about 2 years, and am thoroughly glad I upgraded.

However: Could you please add track scrobbling support? I am big on tracking my own listening habits, and I was very sad to see that the Pandora One desktop app (OS X 10.5.8) does not either support built-in scrobbling *or* allow my already running Last.FM application to scrobble tracks.

It's bad enough that the Pandora-to-Last.FM GreaseMonkey browser script no longer reliably scrobbles tracks... :(

Anyways aside from that, I am in big love with it, good work.

Posted by: Chriso at February 17, 2010 12:47 PM

@DAF -- We try to make it as clear as possible that Pandora One does not offer unlimited skips. Thanks for the suggestion of "audition mode", we'll definitely keep it in mind.

@Aaron -- We're looking forward to the day when higher bitrates will be available on Squeezebox and other devices. We're a small company and we simply don't have the resources to do everything we'd like to do all at once. Someday we will re-engineer the Pandora API so in-home devices like yours can receive higher bit-rate audio. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

@Jake, Chriso -- Thanks for the suggestions for a connection between Pandora and the listeners' own music collection. We'll definitely keep it in mind as we decided what features to add to Pandora next.

Posted by: Ryan, Pandora Support at February 17, 2010 4:40 PM

Pandora is a true revolution in music, like nothing before it. I listened to it for one day and called XM to ditch that 3-year old subscription. The XM dock is now a speaker for my laptop and the radio itself is in a drawer with old cellphones, paperclips and dust. It has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with listening enjoyment. I have it on my computers, Roku on my television, and on my phone.

Pandora One makes a good thing even better. Give us "always on top" option for the desktop App!!!

Posted by: John at February 18, 2010 9:00 AM

Why does Pandora automatically add a "country pop" station to my list? I cannot tell you how many times I have deleted this station only to see it back in my list the next time I log in. I hate country music and this is annoying to the point I want to stop using Pandora. How can I deleted this station forever?

Posted by: Kate at February 18, 2010 9:16 AM

On May 20, 2009 at 06:21 AM Alan M. said:

> Someone ought to capture the email
> exchange (above) between CTO Tom Conrad
> & Roman. It's a thing of beauty: The
> customer starts off incredibly
> disgruntled, but is very articulate
> about what's annoying him. The CTO
> replies respectfully & with useful
> information. Customer comes back with
> sensible recommendations for
> improvements. CTO points out legal
> hurdles. Customer suggests maybe he'd
> consider trying the new application if
> there was a trial period. CTO says he'll
> consider it. ... I rarely use Pandora,
> but I found this exchange inspiring. No
> kidding. Thanks.

Yeah, seriously. That was one of the best customer support exchanges I've ever seen, and from a 4 year old company (at the time) no less. Y'all should frame it.

Posted by: Ert at February 21, 2010 12:44 PM

Hi Tom

I'm trying to trouble shoot the poor quality/fidelity of the Pandora signal moving from my high-end laptop to my home theater system. Your normal signal shows potential when playing through my laptop speakers, but degrades when going out the headphone jack to the theater system. 1) Not being an audio engineer, I could use some help, and 2) Why not provide 192k in the Pandora One 24 hour demo?

Posted by: DanS at February 26, 2010 10:04 AM

I bought Pandora One in part so I could get the desktop player. For the most part, I like the player a lot. But I miss a couple of features that the browser version has. Please consider programming them into the desktop app in your next version.

One thing I miss is the ability to see and thumb down recently played songs. I often like to wait 'til after the song finishes playing before I give it a thumb down. I do this because I like the song, so I want to hear it all, but I only give it a thumb down because it doesn't fit with the genre of the station. That way I get the song out of the station but don't have to use up a skip to do so.

The other feature I miss in the desktop app is the ability to move a song to another station.

Please consider adding these features to the desktop app. But don't sacrifice the small footprint to do so. The small footprint is a big plus in favor of Pandora One.

How do I check which version of the desktop app I have and which version is currently downloadable? I want to install your next release when it becomes available.

Posted by: David at February 27, 2010 10:52 AM

To all the other Linux users as well:

Running the Pandora One client in Ubuntu 10.04 (Alpha) through Adobe AIR, of course and other than a couple windowing bugs, I have to say that it's working quite well for me here. I was having some issues with it wanting to kill fire fox while a flash video was up, but I doubt that's due to coding in the client and more due to Flex.. again, other than that, it seems to be working just fine.

Posted by: Matt at March 8, 2010 10:41 PM

It's been said already, but because there has yet to be an official response I'd like to add that you *need* to have global hotkeys for Pandora One.

Thanks!

Posted by: Sean at March 13, 2010 9:47 AM

I just want to give another vote for the 192Kb/s audio on the Squeezebox. I also listen via headphones in the library, but it's at home with the hi-fi and the Squeezebox that the better quality can truly be appreciated.

Is there a legal limitation at issue here? At face value, I can see no reason why an easily customizable piece of high-end equipment like the Squeezebox would be able to accept 128Kb/s streaming and not 192Kb/s.

I place no small value on music quality, and I greatly appreciate Pandora and its mission; as soon as the higher bitrate is available via SqueezeCenter, I will be a Pandora One subscriber. Until that day, I wait with the rest.

Posted by: Jim at March 16, 2010 2:23 PM

6 skips per hour! I'll save my money! That is too bad.

Posted by: Popcorn Machine Cart at March 18, 2010 9:30 AM

I use wireless bluetooth headphones with my blackberry, but after each song, I lose the connection. Is this a function of the program and if I upgrade, will this annoyance go away?

Steve Needham

Posted by: Steve at March 18, 2010 8:39 PM

Please let me know if there is a Linux trial version. Why not an activation key to enable more than a small set of songs?

I'm running mint, which is basically ubuntu..

Posted by: colorado pablo at March 22, 2010 10:02 AM

Love the app and will subscribe to Pandora One when 192kbps is supported! It's cumbersome to connect my laptop to my home stereo--incredibly easy with an iphone dock.

Posted by: Don at April 8, 2010 11:28 AM

Is 192 supported on the iPhone yet? It's the only device I listen to for my Pandora playing, so if not I'll have to hold out like the rest of the crew on here. Thanks!

Posted by: Christopher B at April 13, 2010 8:21 AM

I was amazed to hear about this product. This is very great! Do you have a free trial?

Posted by: J at April 14, 2010 1:27 AM

I've been using the Pandora desktop app for a while, but lately it hasn't been remembering when I tell it that I'm tired of a song. Isn't it supposed to put the song on the shelf for a month? It goes back to the same song a day or two later. :(

Posted by: Transfinite at April 14, 2010 3:48 PM

I absolutely love this service. I've been using it free for years! On my computer I experienced a slight enjoyment, since I am not regularly on my computer. But since I began using an iPhone, it has revitalized my waning interest in new music. I have purchased so much new music since I purchased the iPhone! And I love it all! I go through phases. First, I listen and coddle my little station until it is just right. Then, I add songs to my bookmarks. When I have enough to make a cd, I purchase all of them from iTunes! Then I stop listening to pandora for a bit while I really take in all that great new music. All my friends love the music I introduce to them through cd's I make, and suggest other artists they enjoy. So I plug it in. Then I get to keep the learning going! Obviously, I start listening to Pandora again to keep it fresh! The algorithms just seem to always get it right. For me, this service is by far the most constant thing keeping me in the know about what I might like, and I love it. Thank you for such an amazing service, it really has changed the life my precious little ears get to live. Thank you so very much.

Posted by: Christopher Harris at April 14, 2010 10:42 PM

So I want to upgrade to Pandora One definitely but I'm a PC volunteer and will be going abroad (outside the US) on a mission. I can't imagine life without Pandora here, imagine outside. I need to know if upgrade is worth my $. thanks

Posted by: Ed at April 21, 2010 8:08 PM

Wow, as a paid user I really hope you guys come up with something that can use resources a little better. I just looked and the pandora desktop app was using a little over 300 MB. Quicktime playing a 1080p clip was only using 52 MB. What is the deal? My computer has plenty of juice to play a 1080p clip obviously, but when i use my typical workload of apps open, 300MB is a big deal to have wasting for streaming music. Really? Come on guys, I expect better...

Posted by: Kerry at April 23, 2010 4:42 PM

I am a subsriber to Pandora One.. It's great, I love it, but when will there be an interface to use it with the Wii? Really, when are you guys going to put some time into the Wii..? Maybe I missed a response on this subject, a new post would be appreciated if any at all.
thanks

Posted by: Lou at April 25, 2010 1:11 PM

As a paid subscriber to Pandora, I would like to know when they'll be offering the great streaming service on the PlayStation 3 console without having to go through the browser.

Posted by: John at April 26, 2010 8:29 AM

I will be buying Pandora Uno as a gift for my significant other this Holiday and while the lack of a gift option means I have to basically roll my own you guys should really have implemented this by now if it's in your financial best interestes to sell annual subs.

Posted by: mike at April 27, 2010 5:06 PM

Its really very handy!!

Posted by: migen at April 30, 2010 7:14 PM

I've loved Pandora since the day I discovered it. I recently paid for Pandora One and personally, I'm more than happy to pay $36 to support such an amazing product and company. Seeing your Tom's outstanding customer service cements my support even more firmly. I have one comment and one request for the team:

1) Thank you so much for allowing the same account to log in from multiple places. See, I don't listen to Pandora quite enough to justify paying (as much as I want to) for the subscription, and neither does my fiancee, but between the two of us we can justify paying the fee. Since we can just both use the same account this works out perfect. And the occasional overlap in our listening (which is rare since we listen and home mostly, sit right next to one another and have the same taste in music) won't be an issue.

2) The only feature I would absolutely love (technically 2 features I suppose) would be media key functionality as mentioned before and the ability to display song and station information on the screen of my Logitech G15 keyboard.

Great work on the whole setup and thanks for the awesome product.

Posted by: Adam at May 16, 2010 9:38 AM

Can you minimize the Pandora app on iPhone/iPods while continuing to stream music? I must be missing something because I have to close the application to check email or surf the web.

Posted by: Dirk at June 2, 2010 8:24 AM

I agree with the others that a Gift option is critical, especially with the holiday season coming around the corner. You honestly couldn't ask for a better feature, as those who have purchased Pandora One are most likely some of your most loyal fans

Posted by: video game at June 5, 2010 8:08 PM

i am a big fan of the desktop app and the sound quality is very very good. It would be good to have all the functions as the full player. But i can understand the issues that could cause in this case.

Posted by: Wedding Directory at June 11, 2010 8:44 AM

I bought the subscription, but am still limited to the 12 skips on my iPhone and iPad (and yes I'm signed in.) Does that mean that this feature doesn't carry over? What about higher quality streaming if I'm on wifi?

Posted by: Matthew Browning at June 12, 2010 2:13 PM

Will upgrading remove the ads from my android device?

Posted by: jason at June 20, 2010 9:36 AM

It appears that the application is built with Adobe AIR, which isn't supported under 64bit Linux. No, I will not install 32bit libraries. I hate saying this, but I wish you used Java instead. Pandora you just lost a potential subscriber. Let me know when 64bit linux support is available for the desktop app and I'll consider buying.

Posted by: Mark at June 25, 2010 9:16 AM

I tested the difference between the normal quality and Pandora one 192kb/sec and was very impressed. For the iPhone app, will it stream @ 192kb/sec if you are a Pandora One subscriber?

Posted by: PB at June 28, 2010 6:02 PM

@ Matthew, Jason -- On iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, signing in with your Pandora One account removes all advertising, and removes the daily skip limit. None of these devices are compatible with higher quality audio streams at this point. Matthew, if you are still having difficulties with your subscription, please send an email to pandora-support@pandora.com

Posted by: Ryan, Pandora Support at June 29, 2010 6:28 PM

@Mark -- Sorry that it's not yet possible to use the Pandora One desktop app in 64bit Linux. Thanks for the suggestion.

@PB -- Sorry, higher quality streams aren't yet available for the iPhone App.

Posted by: Ryan, Pandora Support at June 29, 2010 6:30 PM

Hey Pandora and Pandora fans! I just wanted to take a moment to say how much Ive enjoyed using the free version of Pandora over the years, I have been with you guys since the beginning. To all the people who are complaining about the features that Pandora One users will get that would be denied to the free users, I just want to say that you are being thoughtless and selfish. Man up and pay the whole 3 bucks a month if you want the extra features if you don't then continue using the free version. These people have spent years perfecting a free service that has been paid for entirely by advertising and you people are complaining about not being able to skip more than 6 times per hour? It has never been possible to skip the songs on the radio, why should Pandora be different? Anyway Once again Thank you so much for the hard work you guys do, I love the new desktop app its awesome and sounds amazing, I'm checking out the trial right now, its a work of art. Keep up the good work. I'm among the users that don't mind paying for this quality service especially considering the cost, it is absolutely reasonable! Thanks Pandora

Loyal Customer for Life
Raven

Posted by: Raven at July 15, 2010 7:10 AM

When are you going to have an app plugin for the PS3? Having to utilize the PS3 browser is painful, especially when all you want to do is listen to some music. I would pay for that!

Posted by: Alan at July 25, 2010 5:55 PM

Hello. Love the One upgrade.

Thanks.
Be well.

Posted by: james at July 28, 2010 1:19 AM

With all the requests how do you still not have a Gift option? I wanted to buy Pandora One for my mom. I just introduced her to Pandora and she loves it.

Posted by: Ashton Johnson at August 6, 2010 10:16 AM

Tom & Pandora Team -

Reading through all the surprising complaints above, I just felt compelled to drop you a line.

I love Pandora and didn't mind the ads of the free version. I use Pandora daily, even though I also subscribe to Rhapsody. I upgraded to Pandora One simply because I think you guys have done a great job and deserve the measly subscription fee.

So, great job, great interface. Pandora constantly exposes me to new music I wouldn't have heard elsewhere.

Thanks!

Doug

Posted by: Doug at August 21, 2010 6:12 AM

192k isn't the "highest quality streaming experience on the web". Digitally Imported streams at 256k. although they do charge a little more and it's not as personalized... I'm subscribed to both at the moment. Itl probably stay that way for a while since neither is that expensive.

Posted by: Sean buckley at August 26, 2010 9:13 PM

I just emailed support and got a two-days trial of Pandora One. I can say the bits through my V-DAC (usb to my laptop) sounds very good on my AKG K601.

However, I will wait until Squeezebox is supported by Pandora because half of my listening time is on Squeezebox.

Posted by: Hongze at August 29, 2010 7:12 PM

Well, they are definitely disingenuous about the "skip all day" thing (they do not mention the "6 per hour" limit still holds - even for the paid version - in any of the blurbs that get you to sign up).

I mean come on, I would pay an additional 10 per year if they could change that restriction to 12 per hour or at least let us NOT count songs we vote DOWN. Would also be nice of Pandora to add a count-down timer for that hour limit, too!

Posted by: prowse at August 31, 2010 10:46 PM

I was wondering if there was a way to see your previous songs in the pandora one app. I like how the website shows previous songs so if you cant get back to the pc right away to give a song a thumbs up (or thumbs down) you can still scroll back to do that. If this was asked earlier, im sorry, but I wasnt going to read through all the comments to find out :). Other than this lacking feature, it seems cool. I just started my trial of pando one today so we shall see..

Posted by: Zach at September 5, 2010 6:31 PM

Hey there Pandora folks,

If I upgrade to Pandora One will I also get the higher quality audiostream to the built-in Pandora app on my Onkyo NR-807? I doubt I would notice the higher quality through my desktop speakers at work, but I would definitely be able to notice the difference through my home stereo.

Thanks,

Don

Posted by: Don at September 13, 2010 11:33 AM

I currently listen to Pandora on my blackberry. Does Pandora One improve the sound quality on moble devices?

Also - Some songs play at different sound levels...is that intentional on the Regular Pandora versus Pandora One?

Posted by: Rick at September 16, 2010 11:30 AM

I'd like to gift a premium account to someone I know. Any way to do that if I only know their email address and not their password?

Thanks!

Posted by: Tylor at September 19, 2010 5:10 PM

The pandora one player needs the option to remove the popup in top right corner. I like to listen while i play fullscreen games and this has slain me several times... going back to the browser now.
Maybe also add a fade time to the little pop up too. I understand you want to keep the player lite like google does with their products, but just so you know. This is a feature that is stopping one of your pandora one customers from using the player.

Posted by: Jesse at September 21, 2010 6:48 AM

I just bought Pandora one the other day and today I was skipping through and it said I couldn't skip more then 3 times, also I have a HTC TILT 2 smart phone why can't I get a good app for it ?

Posted by: Brent at September 27, 2010 3:05 PM

I'll join the chorus: A gift option would be really nice. My girlfriend's birthday is around the corner and I'm planning to roll my own Pandora One gift for her, but it sure would be nice if I could do it directly through you guys, especially with it timestamped to be e-mailed to her on her birthday.

Anyway, Hope this is still an option you guys are considering.

Posted by: Trickster at September 28, 2010 7:54 PM

I have used many services but this one is just right. It is only $36 per year while others cost a minimum of $120 a year for PC and Mobile access. The 6 skips per hour is a little strange but alright. The Pandora One air app works great in Linux a big plus.

Posted by: D M Wilson at October 8, 2010 11:43 AM

This is one application. I really love this to bits!

Posted by: Jules Rivera at October 9, 2010 8:48 AM

Hi, I want to applaud the Pandora team and the hard work and effort that is put into the creation and maintenance of this free service. I am a 3Gs iPhone user and I've downloaded the free application for my phone. I listen to Pandora everyday. Recently I installed a 2010 Pioneer 920BT navigation system in my vehicle. It has Pandora built into the head unit which means I can control Pandora from my screen. It's awesome! I am currently a free user but I'm seriously considering upgrading to Pandora One, not because I don't like the ads bit because I truly feel you guys should be compensated for your efforts. Let's put it this way, I love Pandora so much that I didn't activate the XM radio on my Pioneer head unit. Plus, XM is more than $15/month!

Keep up the GREAT work Pandora team. Your listeners (especially this one) really appreciate listening to music that we can control!

Chris

Posted by: Chris at October 10, 2010 4:44 AM

This app is totally awesome! But for the love of all that is sane, please provide some freaking global hotkeys already.

I listen to this all day at work on my mac and it really needs global hotkeys. The lack thereof is just plain stupid.

Posted by: oreX at October 14, 2010 10:16 AM

300kbps is what I usually prefer in Shoutcast streams... Anything lower, and it has to be top-notch programming...

192kbps has a tendency to sound slightly gritty/gurgly/distorted in both AAC and MP3, though AAC is a little more graceful.

I just signed in for the 24 hour test drive and got a message "High quality audio is not available with this trial" so I have no way to even preview how your setup handles things at 192kbps. I'm sure it would be a great improvement to all the tinny, glassy overtones of that 64kbps stream on the default! After a couple of hours listening to that, it's time for an Excedrin!

Posted by: Bryan at October 29, 2010 12:44 AM

is pandora compatible with the wii, if not when might it be if at all?

Posted by: thatguyuknow at November 11, 2010 2:20 AM

I was going to pay to upgrade Pandora but saw this faq and thought i should check it out first good thing i did as thats when i found out that you cannot skip as much as you like in the paid version either.. Now i understand the add supported version excuse for the skip limit and having to pay royalties either way but if im paying for the service then that excuse just goes out the window.. as for any rebuttal to this idea (as far as royalties still being to high for even paid customers to be able to skip as much as they like then) that would be easy to rectify by just showing the next que'd song on your list before it plays and giving paying customers the options to skip preemptively therefore avoiding having to pay royalties now i see certain instances where this may not work (ie the song ends while they are still preemptively skipping songs) its still would most likely be only a few songs skipped then and there for around the same as the amount that the app allows to skip or the user would be able to just listen to what ever song they dont like until they find one they do then skip the current playing song. If this issue is ever fixed in this manner i would be more then happy to subscribe as well as many of my friends who ive discussed this issue with

Posted by: alfred at November 11, 2010 11:04 PM

Hi, I still haven't found out whether you can listen to Pandora One on multiple computers or not? In any one day I can be on 3 computers & I want my Pandora everywhere. So, please let me know before I pay for the year.
Thank you... :)
I had never ran out of my 40hrs till today! LOL

Posted by: Julessss at November 18, 2010 9:39 AM

I'm not sure if there's anything like it out there, but I'd really like the Pandora One application to be able to minimize to a 'mini-player' that stays in my taskbar so I can easily next, thumbs up, thumbs down a song, etc. Other music players have this feature, I'm sure its not prohibitively difficult to put it. Also, global hotkeys would be really nice, maybe support for keyboard with pause/next media buttons (and maybe support for keyboards with LCD screens).

As for people disliking the pandora one 6-skip hour-limit, this is only per station. You can make two stations with similar music tastes and listen to station 2 when station 1 runs out of skips for the hour. No big deal.

Posted by: Gene at December 4, 2010 10:17 AM

it's effin amazing how ingratiated and downright arrogant some people have become. Frankly, the way some of the commentators have scoffed at the way Pandora does things is just amazing. I'm using it on my Palm Pixi and will be upgrading to Pandora One tomorrow morning, right before I leave for work, so I know I won't run out of time! Thanks for the many free hours, but I'm now very happy to pay the measly 36/annually.. thanks Pandora!

Posted by: dave at December 9, 2010 7:18 PM

If we buy Pandora One subscription, will we get a higher quality bit rate on an Android phone? Today, plugged into my truck it just sounds terrible :(

Posted by: Jeff at December 17, 2010 7:34 PM

PANDORA ONE IS THE WORST GIFT I'VE EVER RECEIVED FOR CHRISTMAS! $36 for no ads...Hey sometimes I like some ads every once and awhile...It makes me chuckle.

Posted by: Totti at December 26, 2010 11:19 PM

The annual fee for Pandora is entirely worth it. I am thoroughly enjoying the music. I have a home network and various audio devices. I would like the stream to go to multiple devices simultaneously. I realize that this is probably not a Pandora functionality, but is there a recommendation utilizing software and/or hardware?

Posted by: Peter Truitt at December 28, 2010 5:57 PM

I am in the US Navy and currently stationed in sunny San Diego California. For Christmas my wife purchased a subsription to Pandora One for me (greatest gift ever) but I will be transferred to Italy around July 2011. Will I still be able to use my account while stationed overseas?

Posted by: Lewis T at December 30, 2010 11:34 AM

If I upgrade to Pandora One, will the enhanced service play thru on my Blackberry? Or do I have to upgrade on the mobile app?

Posted by: Jerri at December 30, 2010 1:46 PM

I upgraded my pandora and it dosent let me skip as much as i want it only letsz me skip once an hour,and you guys said that the audio will sound better and its the same.please get back at me,so i can see what's going on with this upgrade.

thank you-miguel delpilar

Posted by: miguel at December 31, 2010 4:10 PM

Another Pandora One member here pleading for 192 Kb on Logitech Squeezeboxes!! I know Pandora is a small outfit but PLEASE re-engineer the API to provide the Logitech music players your 192 Kb stream. Thanks and Happy New Year!

Posted by: Russ P. at January 1, 2011 6:08 PM

Paid for pandora one, (been hoping to help support your efforts when my budget would permit, yet, got tired of waiting and splurged on it anyways.) Always loved pandora, ok now that that's out of the way, I'm also curious. will there be a Pandora One app for the payers? it requires a login anyways.. or maybe update the original app for droid etc... to automatically pop extra options when you login with a pandora one account?

There's a pandora in my pocket!

-Ben

Posted by: Ben at January 4, 2011 12:52 PM

Hi there guys; Someone may have asked this already so feel free to scold me if so, but if I were to pay for Pandora One would I be able to experience the benefits on the Android version of Pandora? (No ads, better audio quality -- if it could support it, etc)

Posted by: Mark at January 6, 2011 10:40 PM

Can i cancell pandora one i bought only so i could skip as many times as possible and well i cant

Posted by: Aaron at January 15, 2011 2:05 PM

Hello friends,this is a nice site and I wanted to post a note to let you know, good job! Thanks
Best regards, Natali, CEO of iso burner

Posted by: Alia at January 17, 2011 5:54 AM

Another vote for higher quality on iPhone (obviously 192 might only be for wifi, but still a higher quality for 3G connections, maybe adaptive to signal). I only started listening heavily a few weeks ago and decided that getting rid of the background hisses and noise was worth $36 to me. I entered all the payment info and was honestly about to hit pay when I suddenly thought just to be safe I should make sure that it'll sound better on my iPhone (95% of my listening) and found this thread. I'm enjoying Pandora quite a bit so far but I think that there'd be a lot of people interested in better quality sound on their iPods/iPhones.

To put my money where my mouth is I'll pay the upgrade to show my support and hope that you're working on it!

Posted by: Thad at January 18, 2011 3:51 PM

i want music

Posted by: roman at January 21, 2011 5:21 PM

If you're new to Pandora you can get a free 3-day trial of Pandora One here: http://techblog.willshouse.com/2011/01/06/pandora-one-3-day-free-trial/

Posted by: Mark at January 25, 2011 6:37 PM

listening to pandora one for about 3 months now . . its worth the 3$ per month . . the bitrate really makes a difference . . and i just leave my ps3 browser on pandora one the whole time . . . sound is crystal

Posted by: srsairbags at February 3, 2011 11:08 AM

I love Pandora, but i often listen to Pandora on my iPod rather than my laptop. I will buy Pandora One when you upgrade the sound quality for Pandora One on iPhone as well. For now $36 is a little to much just to get rid of the ads.

Posted by: Jssgarden at February 9, 2011 12:21 AM

i have just bought Pandora One because i love you guys and think you deserve my support. But as a college student $36 is not a small amount of money for me, like i said above i really hope you guys work on the sound quality for the iPhone and iPod so i would feel that my money was worth it. I don't mind the 6 skipping limit but please work on the sound quality for iPhone. that's all i ask for. Thanks

Posted by: Jssgarden at February 9, 2011 12:34 AM

I have a couple of suggestions that I think would make the user experience better and would bring more money to Pandora.

First off, currently when I give something a thumbs up it is permanent. Sometimes I have clicked it by accident or I'm just tired of the song. I would like to be able to unthumb without have to give it a thumbs down. Also sometimes I give something a thumbs down and then I can't change it.

2. Currently on the Android App you are not able to view the previous songs played so that I can rate them. Will there be an update in the future so I can look an previously played songs just like on do on the web browser version of pandora?

3. Assuming you are getting paid when someone buys a song or album that is link through pandora.com, it would be great if instead of having to remember to bookmark a song when I am interested in buying it, if instead Pandora also tracked that last 50 or so song played so I could go back and check them out if I couldn't bookmark them. Also if I am still able to give the songs thumbs up or thumbs down even after I have log out and then signed back in that would be great. This applies to one of my first point where I may want to change the thumbs up/down rating I may have given a song initially.

Lastly this is just comment that may be worth telling users of Pandora. I used to give thumbs up to everything I enjoyed but I found that after a while I had given so many thumbs up, new music was rarely introduced. I created much better stations by just giving thumbs down to songs I didn't like and never gave any thumbs up thus maintaining a diverse playlist.

Thoughts?
Thanks.

Posted by: Ben at February 9, 2011 10:47 AM

Very nice sound quality. Keep up the good work!

Dan

Posted by: Dan at February 9, 2011 12:26 PM

So how come the Pandora One option is not available on the iphone? My girlfriend bought me it for my computer, but I listen to Pandora more often on my iphone and I think those options should be equally available on the phone app.

Posted by: TJ at February 12, 2011 4:29 PM

Thanks for the free listening and 99 cent option for 'extra' listening! I'm a big fan ; )

Posted by: mia at February 13, 2011 9:38 PM

I tried out Pandora One and quickly discovered that you don't get the 192kbps streams on devices other than a computer -- I rarely use Pandora from my laptop, but often use it via my Denon receiver or my iPhone. I'm happy to pay the $36/yr once the higher quality stream is supported on those devices, but not until then.

Posted by: Rourke McNamara at February 19, 2011 5:52 PM

I've been using Pandora One for over a year now and would absolutely love to see some updates to the app. Global Hotkeys is my number one want. Also, being able to unthumb songs would be excellent. I feel like these are small requests (being requested over and over in these comments) and that support for the app is non existent even though people are shelling out the money. Where is the support?!

Posted by: radish at February 23, 2011 9:22 AM

@ Tom Conrad just want to say I have the free app on my iPhone 4 and absolutely love it!!!! I'm thinking of purchasing Pandora One for my iPhone and probably will but I'm curious if I would be able to keep my saved favorites and stations? I'm also curious if I would be able to save more then just 100 artists radio stations because I love so much and find new ones that I love and like to find more through them? And will I be able to repeat a song that I just listened to? So any info would be great thanks so much Pandora has changed my life and my listening pleasure!!!!

Rich

Posted by: Rich Fitz at February 23, 2011 12:14 PM

Am i limited to installing pandora on just one computer? I have a desktop and two laptops.

Posted by: calvin at February 23, 2011 3:03 PM

I agree with several previous posts; I want to throw my money at you so I can listen to Pandora in 192kbps on my LG BD590 blu-ray/media player. I run an optical digital connection to my Arcam AVR300 and have some very revealing speakers. I find that the 128kbps stream, while hugely better than the 64kbps stream, still has many compression artifacts and lacks the ambiance, wide soundstage, dynamic range, and presence that a 192kbps stream would have. If you enable devices like my LG BD590 to play the upgraded stream, I will throw my money at you in a hurry.

I would actually listen to more Mono, Diana Krall, et al if the audio quality were better. Having Diana's 'Live In Paris' CD & DVD, as well as most of her albums on CD, it's VERY difficult for me to make the transition to listening to the same material in a highly compressed (and basically passionless/lifeless) form.

The other added features, while very nice, do not appeal to me. I know you guys are busy, but if you enable the better audio quality, you will see droves of PAYING customers from sites like AVSForum, Audioholics, etc. People who chat about all the $$$ they have spent/are going to spend on stereo equipment wouldn't think twice about $36 a year for 192kbps streamed audio that has been encoded well on the front end (and your reference audio is definitely encoded well).

Keep up the great work.

Posted by: Mr. B at February 26, 2011 6:10 AM

A few suggestions for the Pandora One desktop app:
(some can be seen today in the OpenPandora app)
1. Indicate which station this song came from when in Quick Mix mode.
2. The ability to edit the Quick Mix station from the Pandora One interface.
3. I second all the requests for weights in the Quick Mix "mixing".

Thanks for a great service!
green-weightlosstea.blogspot.com

Posted by: Green Tea Weight loss at March 3, 2011 2:25 AM

Been using pandora one for the past few months and have nothing but fantastic things to say about it. Keep up the good work!

Posted by: OCX at March 5, 2011 6:33 PM

Agree with the earlier post -- there should be a way to turn off the Growl-like notifications in the Pandora One app. Possible solution, use Growl.

Posted by: Brian McNitt at March 7, 2011 4:16 PM

Hi eveyone

I have enjoy the free version of pandora for a few years now and I shall continue to do as I have enjoyed it very much.

Fine sound and qualitly why should one look elsewhere!

Definitley not me...

Posted by: Bella l Magical Witch Spells at March 9, 2011 3:41 PM

I tested the difference between the normal quality and Pandora one 192kb/sec and was very impressed. For the iPhone app, will it stream @ 192kb/sec if you are a Pandora One subscriber?

Posted by: plumbers manchester at March 10, 2011 6:21 AM

Hey there! Why is it so hard to find a link to upgrade to Pandora one? I'm on the trail version and would like to upgrade, but had to do a Google search even to get to this page. The option to upgrade should be obvious, wouldn't you say?

My trial version will end tonight. Then what?

Best,

Jutta

Posted by: Jutta at March 10, 2011 8:22 AM

Thanks for the post,

I wish that us users in Canada could use pandora still.. When this first came out we were able to use it but now we can't it sucks! Bring it to Canada!

Posted by: Cheap Bed In A Bag at March 11, 2011 4:46 PM

hey i was wondering how pandora pays for its royalties? its it solely from the ads on the free version? if not where from? i was just wondering haha. some things in this world simply escape me how they work!

David

Posted by: David at March 17, 2011 10:54 AM

Pandora,
Will there be an option to support custom keyboard functionality? For example, my iTunes can support the pause/play keys as well as next/previous song from my Logitech keyboard. It would be wonderful to have this work with the Pandora One Desktop app because I use Pandora when running other programs that take up the full screen.

Posted by: Matt at March 17, 2011 6:39 PM

Seriously, what is the point of a desktop app if not for remote control compatibility? Come on, this is nothing more than another window- and not a good one. It's a much better experience just using the browser's player.

ADD REMOTE CONTROL COMPATIBILITY, PLEASE!!!!!! I'm soooo glad I went for the 24 hour trial first, because this is pretty useless. A little bit better streaming quality? Please.

Posted by: rob at March 21, 2011 9:00 PM

It would be nice if there was some level of support for Pandora One on the Ubuntu desktop... it's flaky at best, sometimes it works, other times it tells me "Pandora isn't available in my country"... I'm in Beaverton, OR USA, no I don't use a proxy, nor does my business, we have 100% pure Internet - unfiltered.

Posted by: Brian at March 25, 2011 10:28 AM

@Tom Conrad Your exchange with Roman is one of three reasons that I am upgrading today to Pandora One. Second reason is linux support (I have been a long time linux user (sabayon linux, gentoo based) and Pandora is available on Tivo and other set top boxes.

Pandora has converted me, to a paying customer, not only because it has created an excellent product (it has), but because of the ease of mind that Tom gave concerning the user experience. Customers like being treated like they matter, not like increments to the bottom line.

Thank you. Here's another paid account.

Posted by: Bryan Short at March 29, 2011 9:15 AM