Pandora finally released its first native Windows Phone app Thursday. Microsoft's app ecosystem consistently gets dinged for its slim offerings, so the popular music-streaming app is a big win for the company.
Microsoft announced its partnership with Pandora at the Windows Phone 8 launch event back in October. The company said the app would launch in early 2013 and offer a year of unlimited, ad-free listening with as much track-skipping as you like. Microsoft and Pandora are partially delivering on that promise -- Windows Phone users won't have to worry about ads or music limits through the end of 2013, but are not getting a full 12 months.
The app itself is extremely simple, much like Pandora's web experience. A search bar lines the top and you can scroll through your most recent stations or preset genre stations made by Pandora. When listening to tracks, you can give them a thumbs up or thumbs down.
What makes this a uniquely Windows Phone app are the Live Tile functionality and the ability to pin stations directly to the Start Screen. When listening to a station, you can see what artist and song is playing on the Pandora Live Tile, with album art and all. It's not incredibly exciting, but it is useful if you're multitasking on your phone and want to quickly glance at what's playing. Plus, it shows how Microsoft has partnered with Pandora for a tailor-made Windows Phone app.
The ability to pin individual stations directly to the Start Screen for easier access is a nice addition and further illustrates that partnership. While you're listening to a station on Pandora, you can tap the More button (the ellipsis at the bottom right of the screen) for the option to pin the station to your Start Screen. Other built-in features include sharing a station or song, bookmarking a track, buying the music on Xbox Music and notifying Pandora that you're "tired of this track."
Pandora has also made its Windows Phone app kid-friendly for the Kid's Corner feature of Windows Phone 8. You can choose in the settings to automatically filter out explicit tracks, so your toddler won't accidentally start listening to Lil Wayne dropping F-bombs.
Pandora's availability might not be a huge selling point for Windows Phone, but it is good news for current users. The streaming music service is hugely popular, with more than 67 million active users, so it's very likely that there's overlap with Windows Phone users. If not, the all-you-can-listen, ad-free plan should be enough enticement to draw those users to Pandora.
Now Microsoft just needs to keep on partnering with major companies to stock up its Windows Phone Store.
