Two iPhone apps for two different people.

Pandora’s app is sleek, clean and simple. Last.FM’s app is rough and filled with features.

Pandora

Basis

Pandora uses the Music Genome Project to find what kind of songs you like given one artist name or song name.

Customizing your station

Once the song starts playing users can give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down which tells Pandora that you like the song or dislike it, Pandora then learns and adds it to a knowledgebase for that station.

I have found that users need to invest a couple of days of thumbs up and thumbs down into a station, but when that is done, the station is great and users will always have something they want to listen to. My plan was to focus on a listing event like a house party, then craft a station that would easily be the soundtrack for my next house party.

Additional features

Users can bookmark songs and artist for later look up. This is a great feature, the new music that I find can be noted and downloaded later. Users can also buy directly from iTunes.

Pros

• Very Simple – all you need is one song
• Looks great – cover art gives imagery
• Sound – actually louder then my regular ipod music

Cons

• Bandwidth – needs at least 3 bars to play nonstop
• Next song limits - users are only able to advance to the next song 6 times an hour.
• Community - none, new songs are presented from Music Genome Project and not actual people, so conversations about music do not exist.

Overall

Everyone should have Pandora installed on there iPhone. Investing a good week on active listing creating 4 quality stations would be a great accomplishment and would ensure great music for any situation.

Last.FM

Basis

Last.FM is similar to Pandora in the fact that they both are web-radio 2.0 stations but Last.FM generates its songs on what other users like. Last.FM tracks what people listen to and generates playlist based on what users are listening to.

Customizing your station

Starting a new station is the same as Pandora, enter an artist, a tag or a user and Last.FM will start playing songs

My Neighbourhood station

It’s a great place to listen to all sorts of music that you like, the ultimate favorite mix station. Other then buffering problems, this is the station to play.

Recommended station

This is where users will find new music. This music is found by looking at what other users with similar tastes are listening to.

Features

• Bio - each song will have a Bio button which will give a description of the band you are listening to.
• Similar artist - this button will take you to a list of similar artists and you can start listing to there songs right there.
• Events - a list of events that the current artist will be playing at.
• Share - this feature will allow you to send links to your Last.FM friends and people out of your contact list
• Charts - just an FYI feature, creates charts based off what you have listened too.
• Events (from the home page) - displays a list of upcoming events you want to see
• Friends - shows your friends on Last.FM and allows you to listen to there stations. If you didn't know this is the a major social networking feature.

Pros

• Variety - in the last couple of days I have not heard the same song twice.
• Next song - users can advance to the next song as much as they want.
• Social network - unique to this app.
• Great features - the features in this app are great, if you want to get lost in music this is the app.

Cons

• Buggy - A well known buffering problem (takes a long time to load, over and over). To fix it I have had to restart my iPhone and make it the first app I open, once that is done I have no problems.
• Too much variety - seems to be no real pattern of where its getting is next song, would be hard to make a party station.
• Not designed well - the over all look is shabby, and hard on the eye.

Overall

If users think they can carry on a 40 minute conversation about music at a bar this is the app for them. Last.FM allows users to find new music and connect with people who have similar taste. The app is just a little too deep in some areas which would make the average music fan uncomfortable.

Results

Everyone should have Pandora and invest the time in creating 4 great stations. The music elite will want to install Last.FM as the features and community bring great depth to the app.