Radio Controlled Is A Free Pandora Client For Windows Phone 7
Pandora is a music streaming service with quite a lot of followers. For such a popular service, it makes sense that some of its users must be on Windows Phone 7. Unfortunately, there is no official Pandora app for WP7 yet, despite the presence of a considerable WP7 contingent among Pandora’s subscribers. However, what isn’t available officially on the Mango platform, usually makes its way to the Marketplace via third-party clients. Same is the case with Pandora, which has now got Radio Controlled, an app that will let you do just about anything related to your Pandora account, and while listening to its radio, you aren’t likely to feel that you are not using Pandora’s official app.
Of course, you will need to have a Pandora account before you can use the app, which makes the app useful for US residents only (although anyone can download it). No separate login is required for Radio Controlled, just enter your Pandora ID and password, and the app will take you straight to your account. The interface used throughout the app is pretty metro-like, and makes using Pandora a joy. If you have any channels bookmarked in your account, they will show up in Radio Controlled. Not only that, you can also create new stations from within the app if you want to. One nicety brought to WP7 by Mango is background play, and Radio Controlled fully supports that. While listening to a song on any station, you can navigate to any part of the phone, and the song will keep on playing.
Radio Controlled supports universal search, and you can look for any station, song or artist you want. The app not only connects with Pandora, but also gets information from Zune and Amazon. While listening to any track,, you can tap its info tab, and the song’s album art, artist info and other relevant data will be loaded. You can purchase the songs from Zune or Amazon as well.
Radio Controlled taps in to Pandora pretty neatly, and if you are a Pandora user, do give this free app a try.
Download Radio Controlled
Update: Pandora has got most unofficial clients of the service removed from the Marketplace (and their API has also been changed to render these apps useless). This might come as little consolation if you are a die-hard Pandora fan, but there are many similar music streaming services available for Mango phones. Take a look at Fildo’s review for instance, an app that offers a service that is pretty similar to Pandora.
Used the app for years. Less commercials and it works fantastic!
There’s no mention of account security though. I don’t think I’d feel safe giving my login info to some third party I’ve never heard of…