MP3 Insider

How good does a streaming-music service need to be before it replaces your collection of MP3s? That's the question Apple is asking itself right now, as it deliberates on approving the Spotify app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Here, finally, is a streaming-music app (and desktop application) that promises to stream any of over 6 million songs on-demand, give you the ability to create and save ordered playlists of songs, and best of all, Spotify can save your favorite tunes offline so you can play them even when you're not connected to the Internet.

Sound too good to be true? Well, you might be right. Spotify has been catching on like wildfire in Europe, but the company has been understandably cautious about coming to the U.S., where similar services such as Pandora, Last.fm, and Slacker have all been subject to strict licensing and streaming arrangements that would make a service like Spotify seem unthinkable. Another wrinkle in the Spotify mobile app's appeal is that it will only work for users who've upgraded to Spotify's ad-free premium service ($14/mo). To use Spotify for free, you'll have to relegate yourself to the desktop application.

Here's a look at the Spotify desktop application. To understand Spotify, just think of all the music you could download on iTunes; now, imagine not having to pay for any of it. It's legal and it's coming soon the the U.S. whether Apple likes it or not.

(Credit: Spotify)

Legal and financial barriers aside, the idea that Apple would let Spotify onto the iPhone seems a little far fetched. For starters, it competes directly with the iPhone's own iPod music player app. Its second offense is that it may require a substantial chunk of memory to cache offline content (a feature not granted to Slacker's app). Finally, Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk reports that songs played using the Spotify app do not include links for purchasing the songs using iTunes. While linking songs to the iTunes store isn't explicitly required by Apple, it certainly hasn't hurt the majority of streaming-music apps that have included the feature.

At this point, all we can do is wait and see. With or without Apple's approval of the Spotify mobile app, there's still some reassuring signs that the Spotify desktop client will hit the U.S. before the year's out. If Europe's speedy adoption of Spotify is any indication of eventual U.S. success, the online music landscape (especially subscription and streaming-music services) could be headed for another shake-up.

Yes, Last.fm--like CNET--is owned by CBS, but it's also pretty awesome.

In a world teeming with increasingly similar tech products, Apple is one company that seems to have no problem churning out standout products. This might be attributed to sleek designs, fun features, and friendly interfaces--or maybe you want to chalk it up to good ol' marketing tactics. However, in the case of the iPhone and the iPod Touch, there's one attribute that undeniably separates these devices from the masses: the ever-expanding cadre of third-party applications. You can find everything from cookbooks and weight-loss trackers to games and productivity tools, but the area in which the iPhone and iPod Touch really excel is music, and there are hundreds of applications to choose from in this category.

To help you sort through the mass of options, we rounded up five of our favorite iPhone music apps. To keep things simple, we limited our scope to free selections that have a heavy focus on full music playback. Not everything included here will be a perfect fit for every iPod user, but you're sure to find something that will float your boat.

Top 5 free iPhone music apps

What's not to love about the online radio site Pandora? There's simply no better way to hear great music with a minimum of fuss; just type in a song or artist that fits your mood, and Pandora creates a stream of music just for you.

Unfortunately, Pandora's emphasis on simplicity can be a turn-off for those who crave more sophisticated features. But just like the mythical box from which it's named, there's more to Pandora than meets the eye. By digging deeper into menus and settings, Pandora power users can finesse some pretty cool tricks from the deceptively simple site.

Watch our CNET How-To video for a tour of some Pandora features you may have missed.

In this episode of the MP3 Insider, Donald and Jasmine weigh the benefits and drawbacks of the rumored iPod camera. Plus, Jasmine has a pair of Editors' Choice earphones, Donald rates the Samsung U5 $40 MP3 player, Pandora goes premium, and touch-screen MP3 players band together to challenge the iPod Touch.

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Pandora's free, ad-supported Internet radio service has attracted millions of registered users, and spawned one of the more popular iPhone Apps. On Tuesday, May 19, Pandora announced the launch of Pandora One, a premium version of its popular, free, Internet radio service.

For a yearly fee of $36, Pandora's power users can upgrade to the Pandora One service, which offers ad-free playback, higher-quality audio (192Kbps), extended playback time, and a dedicated desktop player. The announcement of Pandora One comes hot on the heels of news that the company will soon add lyrics to its radio feeds using Gracenote technology.

(Via Hypebot)

Donald and Jasmine discuss Pandora 2.0 and the new Slacker app for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Also on deck: a bit of info from the NAMM show and a little good-natured ribbing at Haier America's expense. Oh, and we poke some serious fun at Microsoft...prepare for your ears to bleed a little first, though.

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Since its release in July of 2008, the Pandora Internet radio iPhone app has been one of our favorites and a consistent top download from Apple's iTunes App Store. Pandora's uncluttered and intuitive interface, coupled with its unique knack for song recommendations, makes it an ideal no-fuss app for anyone looking to add streaming music capabilities to their iPhone or iPod Touch.

Pandora added many new features to version 2.0 of its iPhone app, but its clean, intuitive Now Playing screen remains unchanged.

In version 2.0, Pandora adds several new features without undermining the simplicity that made the original app so great. Users can now listen to 30-second previews of bookmarked tracks directly within the app, without bouncing over into the iTunes store. You can also send links to songs now, as well as stations, to contacts from your address book.

Creating new personalized radio stations in Pandora has never been easier. As before, Pandora lets you create stations by entering any artist, song, or genre as a starting point. In addition to creating stations from scratch, users can now create stations on the fly based around any artist or song on Pandora's Now Playing screen or user bookmarks.

Pandora 2.0 now offers biographical information for the currently playing artist right from the Now Playing screen (similar to the Last.fm app), as well as a detailed account of why each song was chosen to be included in your station. Pandora also added a track progress bar to the Now Playing screen, showing how far along you are within a particular song.... Read more

Donald and Jasmine tease the iPod Nano vs. Microsoft Zune Prizefight and discuss a variety of portable audio accouterments, including a pair of headphones, a portable iPhone-compatible speaker, and the best MP3 players for audiobooks.

Also, hear some gab on the new Zune software, and find out who won last week's contest.

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Thanks to Pandora, the Chumby has graduated from an overqualified alarm clock to the most adorable part of my living room Hi-Fi.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)

For the past eight months, my latte-colored Chumby has been at my bedside, waking me up with an '80s music mix from Shoutcast and feeding my insomnia with RSS tech news. Today, however, I ceremoniously relocated my Chumby from my nightstand to my living room stereo--right between my Zune and my turntable.

The sudden relocation was caused by invisible Chumby fairies silently upgrading my Chumby's firmware yesterday (Hooray for free upgrades!), adding Pandora Internet radio to an already impressive list of streaming music options. The Chumby is meant to be a very flexible, multipurpose gadget, so the fact that I've been using it a glorified alarm clock is a shame. Maybe I've just been in denial over the Chumby's suitability as an Internet radio receiver, but it took the addition of Pandora to finally motivate me to relocate it to my living room.

Aside from the Grace ITC-IR1000B, the $179 Chumby is now one of the cheapest ways to get a standalone Pandora jukebox into your living room. It's definitely the most adorable solution (sorry Grace). Sure, you can get more powerful Pandora systems, like the $300 Logitech Squeezebox Boom, or more sophisticated systems like the $999 Sonos Digital Music System, but for me, a Chumby and a $5 RCA-to-minijack cable is the perfect combination of price, style, and capability.

The Chumby version of Pandora is visually very similar to the Web version.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)

The Chumby version of Pandora doesn't deliver the exact same experience as Pandora on the Web, but the best parts are still here. After logging in to your Pandora account using the onscreen keyboard (for creating a new account) you can listen to any station you've already created, pause and skip through songs, adjust volume, rate tracks, bookmarks songs, view the artist and title information of the currently playing song (including album art), and even create new stations on the fly by typing in artist or song names. The only drawbacks are that you can't purchase songs directly or share songs with friends the way you can with the Web or iPhone versions of Pandora.

To be fair, the majority of Pandora-compatible receivers lack these same features, and few of them offer niceties such as album art and touch-screen keyboards. With the way I have the Chumby set up currently, I'll probably just let Pandora run perpetually in the background, without much interaction, and leave the station creation and playlist grooming for those moments when I've got the Web version of Pandora running on my computer at work.

As free upgrades go, the addition of Pandora to the Chumby is pure gravy. The sound quality is good, the interface is slick, and the price is perfect. After eight months, I'm glad to finally see the Chumby take on more responsibilities around the house.