Pandora has just provided the public an early glimpse into its upcoming music on-demand streaming service, which may be released in Q1 2017. Called Pandora Premium, it will focus on personalization to set itself apart from the crowd.
The upcoming Pandora app aims to compete with other on-demand music streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify Premium despite it losing subscribers and money.
"If you think about the solutions that have been offered to date, they've essentially been on-demand. We really don't believe that's the right answer - you see all the symptoms of a product that's not meeting peoples' needs yet," CEO Tim Westergren said.
What To Expect
Unlike the free Pandora app, which plays songs according to Pandora internet radio stations, Pandora Premium would make millions of songs available on demand. Users can find them by searching and add these to their personal playlists. It would also expand the user's playlists using smart technology by adding songs similar to the included ones. This personalization features were designed to help with music discovery.
Pandora would collect data points from the users daily to give them access to a vast trove of smart suggestions and personalization options. Users could still "thumb" songs on Pandora online to influence the music they want to see.
Additionally, the upcoming app would take the user's individual history into account, which means all songs previously played and liked on the Pandora internet radio would affect recommendations users would get on the Pandora Premium app. It would also automatically add new songs to playlists created and would begin playing new songs after finishing an album so users do not need to continuously search for the next one to play.
Pandora was also the first music streaming service to have an iMessage extension. And just like Apple Music, the upcoming app would change colors, matching the artwork of any playlist or album being listened to.
Will It Be Worth It?
Pandora has been around longer than Spotify Premium or Apple Music. With that said, users have likely fed the service ample data, which makes the premium version a very attractive option for individuals looking for optimum music personalization.
At this time, the company has not yet issued an exact cost for the monthly subscription to the service. As expected, the monthly subscription could be priced at $9.99, which has been the standard pricing for on-demand music streaming ever since.
