[APP] PRadio - Pandora for Windows 8

PRadio is a Windows 8 Store App for Pandora. Unlike IE, this app allows users to stream music from Pandora recommendation service in the background. It works great on tablets such as Microsoft Surface. This app works only in the US. If you want to use it in other countries you need a US based proxy or VPN software such as openvpn.net



Features Supported
* Add radio stations via the search charm
* Search for Genre, Album, Artist and Songs
* Delete radio stations via the app bar
* Pin radio stations to start menu
* Play/Pause/Skip songs
* Multimedia Keyboard Support
* Support for snapped view and portrait layout.
* History of Songs Played
* Share Song Information with other applications via share charm
* Provide feedback for a song
* Background Streaming
* Support for touch and tablets

To download the released version please visit the Windows Store and search for PRadio or open the following link in IE.
http://bit.ly/Yt9qT5
The app is only available in the US Store, if you are in another country you can switch to the US Store by going to "Control Panel\Clock, Language, and Region\ Change region."

[Update 12/14/2012]:
If you want to try out the latest version that will be available shortly on the store you will need to sideload the app. This version supports background music streaming on Surface RT even when the device is locked (Connected Standby).

Please follow the instructions given below:
1. Download Pandora_0.0.4.8_AnyCPU_Test and unzip to any folder e.g. xyz.
2. Open powershell as an administrator
3. Execute the following commands in powershell
a) set-executionpolicy unrestricted
b) cd xyz\Pandora_0.0.4.8_AnyCPU_Test
c) .\Add-AppDevPackage.ps1
[Note: Installation process might ask you to login to your Microsoft Account which is necessary to get the necessary certificates from the windows store to sign the package]

If you have feedback on the app, please post below.

What is Pandora?
Pandora Internet Radio, an automated music recommendation service and "custodian" of the Music Genome Project whose service in full is only available in the United States, with limited access in Australia and New Zealand. The service plays musical selections similar to song suggestions entered by a user. The user provides positive or negative feedback for songs chosen by the service, which are taken into account for future selections.

GoodDayToDie said:

Wow, very nicely implemented for a third-party client! The snapped interface is very good as well. The interface when something *else* is snapped (which means it only has about 1040 pixels of width on the Surface) isn't perfect though (usable, but some stuff gets covered).

I'd be happy to sideload and test a new version.

EDIT: A bit more feedback: the app doesn't handle being backgrounded very gracefully. It will stop playing after the current song. I suppose that *could* be intentional, but it's annoying.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Thanks for the feedback, I just posted instructions to sideload the new version.

It should not stop playing after the current song, this is not intentional. Can you send me the following PRadioInformation.log file which should be present in
%appdata%\..\Local\Packages\28268splashtetra.PRadio_80qntxqrmk3vj\LocalState folder

GoodDayToDie said:

Sorry, I should correct myself: it won't start the next song if the screen is off. Turning the screen on by itself won't start playing agian, either; you either have to use the media control and hit Play, or log in and have the app at least partially in the foreground.

If you still need the log I'll post it here in a bit.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Are you using a Surface RT or an ARM based tablet? If yes, I believe it is going into connected standby. In connected standby, windows does not let the app get the next playlist. I need to use a different set of API to support this scenario. As soon as I get hold of an ARM tablet I will add support for this. If this is not an ARM based tablet then please send me the logs.

GoodDayToDie said:

Sorry, I should correct myself: it won't start the next song if the screen is off. Turning the screen on by itself won't start playing agian, either; you either have to use the media control and hit Play, or log in and have the app at least partially in the foreground.

If you still need the log I'll post it here in a bit.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Hi GoodDayToDie or any Surface RT user,

I have created a new version 0.3.3 of the PRadio which hopefully should work in your machine. Can you give it a try? I do not own one yet so I cannot try it myself.

Instructions are given below.

Thanks

Instructions:
1. Download Pandora_0.0.3.3_AnyCPU_Test and unzip to any folder e.g. xyz.
2. Open powershell as an administrator
3. Execute the following commands in powershell
a) set-executionpolicy unrestricted
b) cd xyz\Pandora_0.0.3.3_AnyCPU_Test
c) .\Add-AppDevPackage.ps1
[Note: It might ask you to login to your Microsoft Account that is necessary to get the necessary certificates to sign the package]

Thanks for the feedback GoodDayToDie & netham45.

The music playback did cut out eventually, but I'm guessing that's intentional (just the "are you still there?" check, perhaps) since it was after an hour or so of inactivity
>> I know why it fails to play after an hour....Connected Standby, I will fix this in the next release.

>> you could put a lot more info on the About page. Version would be good, for example, and I didn't actually see attribution for the CC-licensed artwork, just a mention that it was CC-BY
I will add version in About page. Currently if you run the app and in taskmanager search pandora.exe, right-click and go to properties you can see the version. I will add attribution too. Good catch!!


>> I can't forward to the next song from the volume menu.
Forwarding is currently disabled as Pandora does limit the number of skips after some time. If a users keeps on skipping he/she will eventually hit this limit and there is no UI to message this to the user. This also prevented my app to be certified in the store so i decided to disable it for now till i figure out a better way to deal with this.

It'd be nice if it could remember the last station and start playing on launch
Good feedback, I will add in the next release.

Related, it'd be nice if it automatically logged in on launch, not sending you to the login screen. Perhaps a settings option to clear the stored user settings, and make it log in automatically?
Currently it should automatically login based on the credentials stored on the machine. Do you want a way to clear the settings?

I suspect this is more of an OS issue, but outputting through a USB sound card and putting the device to sleep causes the audio to become garbled and broken
Interesting....Thanks for reporting it. I would need to get hold of a USB sound card to try this out. Was this on the RT device?

The formatting seems to be a bit off in portrait mode, the 'Log Out' button on the top clips over the station name, and there's a considerable amount of deadspace at the bottom of the screen (probably a good 1/3 of the screen is wasted)

Thanks Log Out button should not have appeared. Will fix it and i will try to make better use of the real estate.

And, are the advertisements on it yours or Pandora's? If they're Pandora's, it'd be nice if you could detect if it's a Pandora One account.
The advertisements are mine...Not Pandora's maybe i can reduce the number of advertisements if that is a big eye sore. Thanks again for the feedback.

cobyman7035 said:

does this work for cdn. IP addresses? regular pandora won't let cdn IP users

i know on android, you have to use ORBIT something app, forgot the name, and on iphone you use that hot shield free VPN

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

If you use any VPN software to connect to US based server (I tried openvpn.net although has a data limit) you should be able to use the app to listen to pandora via the app. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

netham45 said:

It sends me to the login screen most of the time when I launch it, or if I come back to it if it's been inactive for 5-6 hours.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Can you send me the PRadioInformation.log file which should be present in %appdata%\..\Local\Packages\28268splashtetra.PRadi o_80qntxqrmk3vj\LocalState folder? This should help me understand why it is not saving the password on RT.

netham45 said:

Yes I'm using RT, though further testing shows that I get the same result no matter what music app I use, so I blame the OS.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Can you also give details of the USB audio device like Manufacturer, Version etc? I will report this to Microsoft.

cammykool said:

Superb app good sir! lives on my second monitor if not just for the cool background

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Thanks cammykool!!

cammykool said:

why not put it up in the windows store?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

The store guys are approving the latest version of the app right now (Takes 7 days ). I will update this thread when it is available on the windows store. The older release is already in the store.