I tried Pandora back in 2005 when the service first launched. The concept was intriguing – a radio station that would help me discover new music that I would like. Like many others, I discovered that on Pandora all music eventually led to Christian rock. Not necessarily a problem if you like Christian rock, but not exactly the revelation I was looking for (pun intended). So I wrote it off and went back to depending on the radio and friends to find new music.

A few months ago Steve mentioned that he was able to use the Pandora iPhone app without interruption on his commute to work in the morning. I was frankly more surprised that he was using Pandora than I was that he had managed to hold a 3G signal the whole time. So after being semi-convinced by him that Pandora’s suggestion algorithms have improved, I decided to give it another shot.

Sure enough, all the music that is played revolves more closely around the original selection. The downside of this is that it appears to simply generate a static playlist based on what you start with, so in a few hours you start to loop. It’s not ideal for discovering new music,  but It’s not necessarily a bad thing either. After a while you feel like you’re listening to a mix tape.

Additionally you can access a list of the songs you bookmark and thumbs-up on the website, which makes it convenient for tracking all the new songs you’re finding. All in all I give this new and improved Pandora a “thumbs-up”. My only gripe is that their downloadable player is simply the web interface packaged in Adobe Air.