- How Pandora Works
- What You Hear Is What You Get
- It's Free—Sort Of
- Using Pandora on the Web
- Using the Pandora Mobile App
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Using the Pandora Mobile App
Pandora's mobile app offers similar functionality to its website, although the ads are more intrusive. In addition to the audio commercials you hear every 20 minutes or so, you see a pop-up ad in the middle of the screen whenever you interact with the app. Very annoying, and the only way to remove the ads is to pay for a Pandora One subscription.
Figure 5 shows the Pandora app on an Android phone. The home screen displays four tabs, of which Stations is the one you'll use the most. The Stations tab displays a scrolling list of all the stations you've created; tap a station to listen to it. To create a new station, tap Create a Station; then enter the name of an artist, genre, or song.
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Figure 5 Home screen of Pandora's Android app
When you listen to a station, you see a screen full of information about the currently playing track, as shown in Figure 6. You see a big picture of the album cover, the title of the track, the name of the artist, and the playback controls at the bottom of the screen. You can tap to pause playback, skip the track, or give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
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Figure 6 Listening to a track on the Pandora app
Swipe up on this screen and you see more in-depth artist and track information, as shown in Figure 7.
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Figure 7 Viewing more detailed artist and track information
You get the artist's bio, features of the track, lyrics (if available), and a list of similar artists you can listen to. Above this info there are icons for (left to right) purchasing the track, sharing the track, creating a new station from the artist or track, and bookmarking or getting rid of the track ("I'm tired of the track"). Swipe back down to go to the normal playback screen.
Assuming you're signed in (with either a free or paid account), the stations you create on the Pandora app are also available on the Pandora website, and vice versa. In addition, you can access Pandora from most smart TVs, streaming media players (such as Roku and Apple TV), and other Internet-connected devices. Just open the app or widget, log in to your Pandora account, and all your stations are there, ready to listen to.