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Pandora Sweetens Free Listening Ahead of iOS 7 Release

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On an earnings call to investors earlier this week, music streaming service Pandora threw a bone to users, possibly to hang on to as many of them as possible following the launch of Apple’s own subscription music service.

Pandora users will now be able to enjoy as much free music streaming as they want, with the company saying that it’s working to “reset” it’s “levers” in September according to transcripts of the call made available by TechCrunch. Pandora users could only stream up to 40 hours of music per month for free on their mobile devices before Pandora stopped them and suggested they pay for the company’s Pandora One streaming service.

Read: iOS 7 Release Date & Feature Roundup (Video)

As free users had to listen to ads in between music tracks already, many free users resented the insinuation that they should pay for the service, which costs $36 a year.

iTunes Radio comes in iOS 7 with streaming stations that are ad-free for $25 a year.

iTunes Radio comes in iOS 7 with streaming stations that are ad-free for $25 a year.

Though most users will rejoice in their new ability to stream music for more than 40 hours a week, Pandora’s timing is curious. Apple could announce release details for its iOS 7 mobile operating system and a new iPhone on September 10th. That operating system, and the update to iTunes that it will require, will give most users their first real opportunity to get a subscription service that is native to their operating system.

That’s because Apple’s iTunes Radio will arrive to all users as a part of iOS 7. Revealed during the company’s World Wide Developers Conference earlier this year, Apple’s iTunes Radio allows users to stream songs for free. Users will also have the option to simply buy the songs. Users won’t be able to replay tracks, though they will be able to skip songs. Any Apple user who already has an iTunes Match subscription will get iTunes Radio for free, and they won’t have to sit through ads either.

Read: iTunes Radio Gets Announced at WWDC 2013

How well add-on services like Pandora and Spotify will do in the face of native subscription services remains to be seen. With the availability of iTunes Radio, each one of the three largest smartphone platforms now has it’s own subscription service built in natively.

Google’s Google Play Music All Access launched earlier this year. It allows users to browse, stream and store tracks on their Android device for $9.99 a month. For that same price Windows and Windows Phone users can stream and store tracks using the Xbox Music subscription service.

During that earnings call Pandora hinted that it would be making other significant changes to its service, however it didn’t share details. Its CEO did share some of his insights on new competitors in the space telling AllThingsD that,

“We’ve now been around for eight years. We’ve seen competitors large and small enter the market and, in some cases, exit the market. I’ve never seen an analysis that identifies an effect from any competitor … we don’t see the picture changing.”

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Satilly1968 (@Satilly1968)

    08/24/2013 at 12:02 pm

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  2. 三木最大

    08/24/2013 at 10:15 pm

    I was getting really fed up with the music selection on Pandora One. More and more live albums instead of the better studio versions, and lately every other song seems to be something from a Led Zeppelin live album. Today I found 8Tracks app. Wow! Good bye Pandora! 8Tracks has Awesome mixes and Awesome genres! The art work is really exciting and fresh for one who had been bored to death with Pandora. I’m holding off on dumping pandora (very hard to do now) until the iPhone radio pops up. But why pay for a stale player when new free apps are getting better? I used to have Rhapsody for a couple of years, but gave it up for pandora because of Rhapsody’s high price. Pandora has always been the poor stepchild to Rhap. Now iPhone Radio may settle this mobile radio evolution for the near future. 😁
    Fear your Government
    三木最大

  3. Dario

    08/25/2013 at 1:39 am

    It’s not all users, only US will get iTunes Radio. This is not ALL

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