Pandora on the iPhone

I have been using Pandora for a while and their site is great. It's clean and easy to use and allows you to rate songs using a 'thumbs up/down' scale. You can also bookmark and purchase the songs you like (through iTunes). So, I thought I'd try the new Pandora application for the iPhone.

Installing Pandora was easy. Although initiating the install was weird (you have to hit a 'Free' button which then changes to an 'Install' button), overall, the process was simple.

One thing I really liked was being asked for my Pandora login to make the process easier. "Already a Pandora user?...even easier, just login...Pandora for the iPhone is fully integrated with Pandora on the Web". The application imported all of my stations quickly.

Using Pandora was just as easy. Although functionality is a bit limited when compared to the web version (for example, song, artist and album info isn't available), it works great as a 'walk up and use' application. Additionally, the 'look and feel' matches the iPhone well and the album cover art is prominent. Just like the website, it takes one click for you to listen to your stations.

Comments

Kirsten said…

My favorite ting about Pandora (for the Web) is the ability to learn what types of music it chooses to play on my station based on Pandora's algorithm of characteristics of the song or artist I've requested it add. However I feel that the feedback of this mechanism is lacking. I would like to be able to pick and choose the elements I like and don't like about a song or artist's style. Sometimes I like just the lyrics but am not totally in love with the harmony, or maybe like the rhythm. It would be great I could give this customized feedforward to Pandora so it has a better model of my likes and dislikes. However, I do agree that the thumbs up/down feedback feature is a great assistant. Great Review Tom! Can't wait to read more!

October 29, 2008 at 6:42 AM

Setting a price alert on Stubhub

A few weeks ago, my wife and I really wanted to see Alvvays and Frankie Rose at Metro in Chicago. But the show sold out and I was left to look for tickets second-hand. I've used Stubhub before to purchase concert tickets but up until now, hadn't tried their Price Alert feature which lets you set a ticket price max and be notified when the price goes below it. The user experience from beginning to end was really good. The feature is easy to find and provides very mobile-friendly controls to create the alert. The Price Alert tab was prominent on the event details screen - very easy to find. Note: today (1/5/18), Stubhub has removed those tabs and you have to tap an Info button top right of the viewport to look for the same feature. It's a still a good UX once you get there but it's an additional step. The Price Alert feature is intuitive and uses tappable numbers to let me pick the quantity of tickets (not a clunky dropdown menu or less efficient plus/minus p...

Redesigning the MySpace music player

Originally a major competitor to Facebook, MySpace has evolved from a being a place for 'friendships' to an important site in digital music. Like Facebook, artists can create profile pages for fans to follow but artists can also embed songs into a music player for fans to listen to. This functionality has really opened the door for discovering new music (especially for new artists who don't have a label or a means of distribution and marketing). However, MySpace's music player (above) suffers from some usability issues including small controls and an inefficient screen layout . When advancing through a song, users have to move a very small slider control that requires unnecessary precision . An improved, larger control would be much easier to click and drag than the current small rectangle shape. Also, the two-row layout of songs in the artist's queue is inefficiently designed . A maximum of only five songs can be listed in the queue at one time and then user...

KEXP's new Apple TV experience

I love KEXP . It’s a listener-supported radio station in Seattle. It streams all around the world on its website and mobile app. And they’ve had a really good app for the Apple TV for some time - great to stream in the house at a high volume! And I’ve reviewed them before here . Oh, and also here . They recently released an excellent new version of the app for Apple TV. And although it doesn’t introduce a lot of new features, it’s way more visually engaging and maximizes the screen real estate much better than before. Here are some of the major changes... Additional, prominent functionality- Archive (stream any show from the past) and streaming Settings The old version had a lot of wasted, unused screen real estate while the new version makes more efficient use of the screen New, large, colorful tiles along the bottom represent each song played in chronological order You can scroll left and right to see history of songs played (much further back in history than before) Larg...

music UX