Streaming music has become the dominant way we listen to music in our house. No muss, no fuss, no files to manage. We’re at a plateau, but not at the pinnacle of how it can be.
Here are a few possible improvements:
1. Load me up. Make streaming music playback a multimedia experience for when the music piques my interest. It is fantastic that I can glance at Pandora on my iPhone to see a vivid album cover of the currently playing song. But I want more more more… lyrics, photos of the performer, liner notes, trivia, upcoming concerts.
2. Sync up. If a Pandora client is playing, and another is activated with the same account, give the option to sync playback across them. Buffer them up so they are in perfect synchrony. This would allow multiple sound systems in the house to be synchronized. At that point, changes to one would change them all.
3. Buddy up. List what friends are currently using Pandora, the titles of their stations and the current song. Give the option to tune in to someone else’s station live. Leverage existing social networks so we don’t have to re-establish the graph.
4. Step up the bitrate. I recently fired up a phonograph that had been idle for fifteen years and was blown away at the sound fidelity. I had literally forgotten how much better music could sound. Over the years, MP3s and streaming audio had inured me to mediocre quality of digitally compressed music. Streaming music purveyors: give me an option to pay… a little bit ($30/year).. to get pristine reception.
As of this writing (1.5 years after the article),
- Apple is trying to do #1 (richer albums) but it’s only available for very few recordings.
- #2 (syncing music playback across multiple devices is still not doable without special utilities (e.g. Airfoil by Rogue Amoeba)
- #3 Pandora has a friends system but it’s weak and doesn’t do this.
- #4 Pandora now lets you spend $36/year for commercial free, higher bitrate service. Yay! (Now just bring it to my Roku box, please)
The Pandora web UI really needs updating. They coded the whole thing in Flash (or Flex) and it’s quite cumbersome.