What is Pandora? Music, pricing, and features explained Macky Briones | usagoldmines.com

One of many unique music streaming services is a bit service known as Pandora. And whereas Spotify and Apple Music often is the extra related tune meccas of 2024, Pandora music continues to be round and is a good way to bask in a lot of your favourite albums, artists, and stations. 

However how a lot does a Pandora music subscription value, and what gadgets are you able to take pleasure in this service on? We put collectively this exhaustive information on Pandora to reply these questions, plus a number of others.

What’s Pandora?

Pandora is a music-streaming service that offers you entry to an immense library of albums, artists, playlists, and podcasts. With an emphasis on curation and suggestions, the Pandora app permits you to construct “stations” which are algorithmically linked to the forms of music you take pleasure in listening to. The extra you pay attention, the extra attuned to your preferences the stations get. 

You’ll additionally be capable to use Pandora to create and share your individual playlists and to obtain music for offline listening (cellular solely).

How a lot is Pandora?

Pandora music affords one free listening tier and two paid subscriptions. Below the free plan, you’ll be capable to take pleasure in various Pandora’s options however with the occasional interruption of advertisements for each desktop and cellular streaming apps. You additionally received’t be capable to make or share any playlists or obtain any tracks for offline listening. 

Upgrading to Pandora Plus for $5 monthly (or $55 yearly) shoves ads utterly out of the image. You’ll additionally be capable to skip as many tracks as you need, and also you’ll additionally achieve entry to offline downloads. 

Sadly, for those who’re all about these playlists, you’ll most likely need to join Pandora’s highest-priced plan, Pandora Premium for $11 monthly (or $121 yearly). On the best shelf, you’ll get all the identical advantages because the Plus tier, together with the flexibility to make and share playlists. Premium can also be provided at a reduced charge for households, college students, and people within the army.

For $18 monthly, the Household plan grants Premium advantages to as much as six members of your loved ones, together with a novel playlist characteristic known as Our Soundtrack that builds a mini-song library based mostly by yourself musical tastes, plus that of your kin. 

The Scholar plan provides a 50% low cost to a Premium subscription, and the Army plan brings the value all the way down to $8 monthly from $10.

New Pandora Plus subscribers obtain a 30-day free trial, and new Premium subscribers can take pleasure in 60 free days of service on the home.

How do you utilize Pandora?

We took the Pandora streaming service for a check drive utilizing the macOS desktop app on a MacBook Professional, and with the iOS app on an iPhone 12. We signed up for a Pandora Premium account on Pandora’s site. 

If you first launch the desktop app, you’ll be on a web page known as My Assortment. Use the search bar within the center to seek for a music, artist, album, or podcast. When you’ll be capable to hearken to any music or album that you just’d like (beneath Plus and Premium plans), Pandora’s algorithmic suggestions to your customized station get higher the extra you utilize the platform. So if you wish to discover new music that sounds much like the polka artists you’re keen on, ensure to present a thumbs as much as the brand new and basic tracks you hear that you just assume sound good.

That being mentioned, let’s break down the various elements of Pandora’s desktop and cellular apps, in addition to its browser-based participant.

The Now Enjoying display screen on the Pandora desktop app. Michael Bizzaco / Digital Traits

On the high of the desktop app, you’ll see three major tabs: Now Enjoying, My Assortment, and Browse. Below the Now Enjoying tab (pictured above), Pandora will play music tailor-made to your tastes and based mostly on tracks and artists you’ve already listened to on the platform. It’s best to see an inventory of “stations” in a piece known as Tune Your Station. These act like filters for the forms of music Pandora will curate for you, with choices like Uncover being notably good for locating new tunes. The Crowd Faves station is mainly a top-hits playlist for the totally different genres you’re listening to. On any station, you’ll additionally be capable to scroll down to search out lyrics for no matter monitor is presently taking part in, in addition to Pandora’s suggestions for similar-sounding artists.

The My Assortment display screen on the Pandora desktop app. Michael Bizzaco / Digital Traits

The My Assortment tab (pictured above) is house to all the music you’ve “collected” by way of Pandora, which is damaged down into artists, albums, songs, stations, playlists, podcasts, and podcast episodes. There’s additionally a Not too long ago Performed part on the high and a Really useful Stations for You part on the backside of the web page. When you choose the Playlist possibility, you’ll be capable to see what playlists you’ve collected, in addition to create your individual.

Below the Browse tab, Pandora breaks down its total library into a number of sub-sections, with New Music featured on the very high. Scroll down to search out the opposite classes, that are Trendsetters: Artists on the Rise, Prime Artists, Moods and Actions (that are damaged up into smaller groupings like Glad and Again to College), and Prime Stations. In case you discover an artist, album, or playlist you want, you possibly can hover over its thumbnail and click on Play. You may also click on the Extra icon (three dots) so as to add or take away the music out of your Assortment, and to share the station with others. 

1.
The Browse display screen on the Pandora desktop

2.
Making a playlist on the Pandora desktop app.

When you choose an artist, you’ll be taken to the artist’s Pandora web page. From right here, you’ll be capable to play the Pandora station linked to that artist, play the artist’s high songs, and share the web page with others. The remainder of the dashboard is taken up by classes like Newest Launch, Prime Songs, Prime Albums, an About part, and a Followers Additionally Like tier for locating comparable artists.

The Beatles’ artist web page on the Pandora desktop app. Michael Bizzaco / Digital Traits

The Pandora desktop app’s UI isn’t nice when in comparison with the super-clean structure and group of Apple Music and Spotify, and feels a bit clunky and outdated.

As for the iOS structure, it is also extra intuitive. 4 major tabs are listed on the backside of the house display screen: For You, My Assortment, Search, and Profile. The For You web page isn’t actually curated to your tastes; it’s only a massive checklist of Pandora’s high artists, stations, and playlists, with a number of artist and playlist suggestions thrown in for good measure. My Assortment carries over a lot of the desktop app’s My Assortment options however optimizes the controls for show on a cellphone or pill. 

Picture used with permission by copyright holder

The Search operate is self-explanatory and Profile enables you to monitor what number of thumbs-ups you’ve given, what number of playlists you may have, what number of followers you may have, and who you’re following. You may also faucet the gear icon within the top-right nook to entry the settings menu, the place you’ll be capable to hyperlink the app to Alexa or an Apple HomePod, alter notifications, alter audio high quality (extra on this beneath), and extra. 

We used Pandora’s browser-based participant on Safari. It’s basically the identical precise structure because the desktop app, however runs a tad bit slower.

What’s Pandora’s audio high quality like?

Respectable, associates. Let’s get one factor squared away although: Thou shall not use Pandora for Hi-Res Audio playback, for mentioned platform doesn’t host something lossless. In case you’re the sort of listener who cares about peak audio efficiency, providers like Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, and Qobuz could also be a greater match.

This isn’t to say that Pandora’s sound high quality is horrible. For the common speaker streamer or headphone wearer, Pandora’s AAC+ and MP3-powered efficiency might be simply wonderful; though you’ll be capped at sure bit charges relying on what plan you’re subscribed to. 

At no cost listeners, the standard is 64Kbps AAC+ with no changes. Pandora Plus and Premium subscribers can select between Low (32Kbps AAC+), Commonplace (64Kbps AAC+), and Excessive (192Kbps MP3) settings for streams. 

How do you obtain music from Pandora?

Offline listening is accessible for all paid Pandora subscriptions, however can solely be accessed by way of the iOS and Android app. This isn’t nice, as a result of rivals like Qobuz let you obtain the tracks on to your PC, which you’ll be able to then add to any machine you need (so long as that machine is suitable).

To obtain a monitor on Pandora, all you must do is faucet the title of the music or album you wish to seize, then faucet the Extra icon on the following display screen. Faucet Obtain and the method is full (a inexperienced arrow emblem will seem subsequent to the downloaded content material). Now when all of the world’s mobile information is devoured by an apocalyptic black gap, you’ll nonetheless be capable to hearken to Mambo No. 5, simply so long as your cellphone is charged. 

How will you hearken to Pandora?

Amazon

Pandora is accessible as a desktop app for Windows and macOS, and as a cellular app for iOS and Android gadgets. You’ll additionally be capable to obtain the Pandora app for Fireplace OS gadgets (just like the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max) and for the Google TV OS, which could be discovered on various Sony, Hisense, and TCL TVs, in addition to the Google TV Streamer.

What’s Pandora lacking?

As talked about, for those who’re in search of a music-streaming platform that places an enormous emphasis on Hello-Res Audio, Pandora isn’t the way in which to go. With streams topping out at 192Kbps in MP3 format, just about some other platform goes to present you higher audio high quality. And for those who’re trying to get into Hello-Res FLAC territory, it is best to undoubtedly go for one thing like Qobuz or Tidal.

Video content material is turning into a bit extra prevalent on music streamers in the present day, however Pandora is one of some platforms that has but to supply any such media. You should have entry to music lyrics and Pandora-authored write-ups on sure albums and artists. And if you wish to add your offline downloads to a PC, sadly, Pandora solely permits downloads on to your cellular machine. 

Above all although, Pandora’s most main miss is its consumer interface for each model of the app and for the browser-based participant. A bit fine-tuning would go a good distance, and whereas the platform isn’t unimaginable to navigate, the general structure might do with some cleanup and group.