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.

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

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)

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.

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

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?

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

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?

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

Any update for UK (wannabe) listeners?

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

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

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?

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 :)

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?

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!

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

@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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

@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.

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

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

http://www.pandora.com/station_gift

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

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.

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

Will the new features work on the iPhone player?

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. :)

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.)

@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)

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

@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

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

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?

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

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!!!

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.

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

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.

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!

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Vista sidebar gadget will still be kept though right?

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.

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)

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.

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?

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!

@Thomas—for an issue like skipping contact support@pandora.com and one of our peeps can help you out.

@fincan—unfortunately each phone requires a separate and unique build in order for the software to function properly and yes, the skins are only available on the browser page not the desktop app or the standalone mini player.

@Bfarn—we still can’t offer songs on demand. No matter how much it’s worth to our listeners. Sorry about that.

@Sheldon—still some tech hurdles to us offering Pandora at 192 kbps on mobile but that can’t be forever, right?

@Ren—thanks for this feedback. Noted, and I’ll pass this along to the development team.

@AnthonyK—ditto! We’ll keep this in mind for future updates.

@JR—Vista sidebar gadget is still there for Vista users to enjoy.

@Dominick-sorry to hear that! Feel free to write suggest-music@pandora.com and explain the problem you're having with repetition.

@Casey—unfortunately no 192 on PS3. Only on the web and desktop app at this point.

@DWard—the skins are available under the Pandora One Button located just above the current song window. I’m not sure what the deal is with the taskbar but if you want to query one of the fine folks at support@pandora.com, I’m sure they could answer you.

Good night!
-A

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!!

Signed up, this is awesome!

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

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?

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

Also looking forward for Android application.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Android and Wii support and I'll sign up!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Oh geez..
No payment via AmEx???

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.

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?

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

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...

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.

@ 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!

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

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?

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

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

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.

@Davis-Although it's not officially supported, the Pandora One desktop player works quite well on many Linux installations. It's working great on the Ubuntu 8.10 and Kubuntu 9.01 AMD64 installations our COO uses at home. Go ahead and give it a try. I'm happy to refund your subscription if it doesn't work for you.

@Chris, @Noah Collin-I hate to quell your enthusiasm but unfortunately, P-One does not affect our licensing issues with broadcasting overseas. This is a separate issue.

@Jen-Thanks for the feedback on this! We’ll keep the idea to go monthly in mind.

@Dan-My gut instinct tells me that I can help you link the station to more variety than that! Send me a link to your BSS station and I’ll take a look.

@Carlos-Absolutely. As long as you don’t mind other users making their own stations on your account, anyone logged in under your email can access the P-One upgrade features. As far as compatibility with 64-bit Vista,

@Chris, @Emma-yes and correct, respectively.

@Mistaman-The upgrade will reflect on mobiles in no daily skip limit and no ads. The skins, desktop app, and mini player are all necessarily limited to the web version. As well, the 192 kbps audio quality is not feasible via mobile at this time. Should work with 64-bit Vista but if there’s any problem feel free to contact us for a refund of your upgrade payment.

@Matt G-Upgrade gifting is a cool idea indeed and we’ll keep it in mind.

@Andy Brett-Keyboard shortcuts ala iTunes DO indeed work with the desktop app. Just make sure it’s in the foreground when doing so.

@Sheldon-Noted! Thanks for the suggestion and we’ll see what the future holds for genomic accessibility for our listeners.

Take care all,
A

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.

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 ;)

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.

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.

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?

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!

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

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).

Will the higher bit rate work on my squeezebox

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.

@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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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!

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

Angela

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

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 :)

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?

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

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

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. ;-)

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

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

Nice work!

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

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

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).

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?

No graphic equalizer, no pandora one for me

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!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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.

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

Would the subscription only cover one of our accounts?

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

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!

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!

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?

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!

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.

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

@Alexis Li, @Red Kite--Unfortunately, the rates, while lower than previously determined, remain unaffordably high. Broadcast radio (which pays a fraction of these costs) could never survive these rates – nor can online radio. We'd love to broadcast in the UK and we’ll continue to hope for a fairer, more workable rate structure. Until then we’re stuck.

@CaptAmaz--We've already got #2 on the desktop app player! Look towards the top of the window.

@Kelly Ford--Here's our FAQ entry with the skinny on accessability for visually-impaired users: http://blog.pandora.com/faq/#530. Please write support@pandora.com if you have any further questions.

@Tim--We are only able to offer web users the 192 kbps at this time. No devices or mobile yet.

@Zorin--This would indeed be cool but that's something that will have to happen on Apple's end.

@matthew--If you and your wife have separate accounts (with separate log-in emails), both would need to purchase the Pandora One upgrade separately, however, you can both use the same account if you wish.

@Shirl F--As mentioned above, 192 kbps is only available on the web and desktop app at this time. As far as the monthly fee for select AT&T users, we're not happy about this as we want Pandora available as a free download on mobile BUT those users who are paying the 9.99 monthly fee to AT&T are already receiving the benefits of Pandora One subscription on their accounts across all devices and the web so there's no need to purchase the upgrade.

Whew. Hope that all helps.

-Alee

@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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

Is Pandora One available for the mac?

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

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 =)

How about Pandora for G1 Phone???

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

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!

@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

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

Can I install pandora on multiple pc's?

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.

@ 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.

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.

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!

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.

@ 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. :-)

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.

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?

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).

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.

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

"Unfortunately, the rates, while lower than previously determined, remain unaffordably high. Broadcast radio (which pays a fraction of these costs) could never survive these rates – nor can online radio. We'd love to broadcast in the UK and we’ll continue to hope for a fairer, more workable rate structure. Until then we’re stuck."

But this is what I don't understand - How do Spotify and Last.FM manage to broadcast over here? It can't be the case that different rates are charged to Pandora by the UK copyright licensing agencies than to the others?! Or is it the case that if a UK listener tunes in, Pandora has to pay rates to BOTH the US and UK licencing agencies i.e. twice the fees in which case I would understand.

Spotify is becoming a phenomenal success here in the UK and unless Pandora comes back on the scene here soon, I doubt the service will ever be as popular over here as it might have been had it never been taken away. Everyone here talks about Spotify now and they appear to have forgotten about Pandora.

I can understand financial considerations during the recession and don't expect Pandora to launch in any other countries for the next 12 months or so, but the moment economy picks up it will be a case of now or never for Pandora in the UK and Europe - With services like Spotify established in the UK market, Pandora will be way down in the list of what music services people listen to. Pandora I'm afraid will have missed the boat.
Pandora had a loyal following here in the UK, there's only a limited amount of time to get these listeners back.

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.

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.

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

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.

I love you.

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.

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!

@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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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. :)

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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

Thank you.

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!

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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!!

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

Thanks Pandora / Adobe.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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?

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..

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

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!

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

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...

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!

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

I really miss the pop out player :(

"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.

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

If so, I'm upgrading...

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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?

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.

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!

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.

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/

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

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

Dear tom

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

deme

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

Thank god for Pandora :-D

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

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.

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

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

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.

Well, to advocates of free stuff I hope you do realize that somebody is paying for internet overheads, the servers, electricity, not to mention manpower. People who get free, cheap stuff and still grumble appall me. Make Pandora 10 cents a year and there’ll still be many folks bitching about the cost.
Pandora has done a wonderful job and those that know the value know they are on to something. $36 buck a year is about 10 cents a day; that is truly a great price for the vast bank of music we enjoy. If you’ve ever been tangled in RIAA’s madness, you’ll know 36 bucks is baby piss.
Pandora radio, please SAIL ON ; dedicated listeners, please SMILE; leave those critics in the dust they are merely doing what they do best.

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.

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

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.

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)

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.

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

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

jim

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

Just upgraded to Pandora One and loving it so far.

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

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

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

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

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

Please get a trial working asap.

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

Thanks!

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Will Pandora One work outside the US?

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!

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

@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