After publicly announcing it was in the works, Pandora finally released an app that lets Google Android users listen to their customized stations.
Pandora, known for its Internet streaming radio service, received some criticism over targeting Apple and BlackBerry ahead of Android.
Similar to other versions, Android Pandora users are greeted with album cover art each time a song is played, with controls on what to do with the song located immediately under the album art. Users have the ability to rate, skip, pause, and get more information about a song – there also is a menu button that gives users the ability to purchase a song through Amazon's online MP3 store.
“You can control playback from a home screen widget, 'deep tap' any artist or song in the standard Android music player and jump into Pandora to discover other similar artists, make a smart folder to get quick access to your stations from the home screen, buy tracks you discover from the Amazon MP3 application, use your Android address book to share stations with your friends, and of course listen in the background while you're doing other things on the phone,” according to Pandora's Tom Conrad, who recently explained some of the new features.
After releasing an iPhone app in 2008, more than 2 million people downloaded it before the end of the year. More recently, Pandora launched an updated BlackBerry app last July, and continues to hear fairly positive feedback from users.
It's nice to see Pandora finally give Android users the ability to listen to content directly in their phones. If you're phone is powered by Android, are you interested in using the first Pandora app available? If not, why not?
