Pandora
Pandora is an app that allows users to stream music from their favorite artists or genres through their mobile app or on their online website. Users build their own profiles where they can log their favorite tracks and have a neatly organized home page full of their saved playlists.
- Search for playlists inspired by any artist or genre
- Thumbs up and thumbs down buttons to either save songs you love on your profile or hear less of what you don’t like on your playlists
- A home page that list all of your favorite playlists for whatever you’re in the mood for that day
- Free trials and offers that give the user a taste of what their small subscription fee services look like
- The option to repeat or skip songs a certain number of times while using the free version
- You can thumbs down any songs you don’t want to hear in the future
- You can discover plenty of new artists similar to ones you love
- You can sometimes earn one hour of ad-free listening by watching a short ad
- You can try Pandora Plus for one week free
- Although ads are pesky, Pandora uses your location to broadcast ads that are relevant to where you’re located
- Lyrics, album artwork, and information about the artist are available on each song
- If you travel or live anywhere outside the US, you won’t be able to access the app whereas other services like Spotify work internationally
- You can’t listen to one individual artist, band, or song- only a playlist of songs similar to what you’re searching for
- A lot of the great features like offline listening, ad-free listening, and customizable playlists are only available to paying members
- You are only allotted a small amount of skips if you don’t like a particular song that comes on the queue.
The Pandora app is a really great alternative to shuffling through your dull, old iTunes library or scouring the radio searching for a channel that plays the kind of music you like. Their app looks clean, bright, and is extremely easy to use. The app in comparison to other similar streaming services hedges out the competition if the user is looking for artists and genres similar to ones they enjoy. The free version of the app has a lot to enjoy, but for $4.99 a month, users can unlock ad-free listening. Pandora does offer free trials of their subscription for one week which is a good way to see if their services are worth the investment. If you use the app often enough, you will sometimes randomly encounter an offer of one free hour of ad-free listening after watching a short sponsored video. If you accidentally skip the song where that offer was listed, you can lose the offer for the day. One way to improve the app would be to give the users the control of when they’d like a free hour, which is great for hitting the gym or throwing a party. If you are a music enthusiast and use Pandora every day, it’s worth paying the $4.99 each month to remove the ads. Other streaming services use ads as well and require a paid subscription to remove them.
Used to be the best. Unfortunately capitolism has ruined a good thing. A commercial break every 1-3 songs is too much for me.