The music streaming app Pandora first unveiled its Premium service last month, but rolled it out on an invitation-only basis. Pandora Premium is finally available for all users in the US today, with Australia and New Zealand coming soon.
Pandora Premium is a direct competitor to other paid streaming subscriptions from Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal, all of which allow on-demand listening from an expansive music catalog. At US$10 per month, the subscription is also priced competitively.
What are the perks of Pandora Premium over rival on-demand services? In addition to the company's familiar radio algorithms, the service lets you start a playlist based on only one or two songs, while its algorithms handle filling out the rest. It also creates a "My Thumbs Up" playlist that stores the songs to which you've given an in-app thumbs up. There's also a predictive offline feature that automatically downloads your most frequent stations, playlists and songs so you can listen without using data or Wi-Fi.
Product page: Pandora Premium
Correction: The original version said Pandora launched today in US, Australia and New Zealand, but the latter two are "coming soon."
