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Pandora for iPad: An Experience for "Lean-In" Listeners


If you were you the kind of kid who sat in front of a radio, tape deck or Victrola and devoured every sound and word of an album, you're what Pandora CEO Tim Westergren calls a "lean-in" listener. You love music, you want to engage with the music you hear and he's made an iPad app just for you.

Pandora for the iPad is an immersive experience for those who think music should be more than just what you hear — that music and information about music should be read, seen and even touched.

"The iPad is completely portable — even more so than a laptop," said Westergren in a call today. "You can imagine taking it all over your house or passing it around a group of friends. And it has a lot more real estate than a smartphone to accommodate the lean-in user. It's not passive, in the background; you're engaged with it."

So, what kind of data will the iPad app offer users? "Right now, it's just bios and reviews, pretty straightforward artist information," said Westergren. But harnessing the iPad's multimedia potential to serve up more pics and videos is on this app's roadmap.

"In the long run, we want to do all the things you'd ever want to do while listening to the radio. Getting more info on the artist, sharing content socially. It's a radio/interconnective tool hybrid... That device is tailor-made for videos."

Don't expect to listen to Pandora and use other iPad apps simultaneously; the hardware simply isn't set up for that yet. "We cross our fingers for [multitasking]," said Westergren, "but that's a decision for Apple to make." Perhaps the lack of multitasking is Pandora's best reason for marketing the app as an "immersive experience" rather than as an in-the-background Internet radio station.

Pandora will be free to download on the iPad, although users can also choose to subscribe to the service for a fee. But Westergren said nothing in the app is especially designed to drive subscriptions. "Our approach is that we want to make it easy for someone to subscribe, but not to force them to," he explained." We're not trying to channel them to that decision, but making them aware of the benefits and making it simple to choose if they want it."


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