We're happy to announce the release of our latest version of Pandora on the BlackBerry. You can download and install it by pointing your BlackBerry browser to http://www.pandora.com

As always, if you have any problems feel free to email our support staff at pandora-support@pandora.com and they will be more than happy to help you. They really do answer every email!

Here is a summary of some of the changes in this build:

- Support for Wi-Fi on devices that have it (using a high quality AAC-HE stereo audio stream)
- Bluetooth support (you can now explicitly enable it and disable it rather than relying on the default audio routing in the device)
- Options screen (accessible from Station List menu) to select preferences for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (on wi-fi capable devices)
- Support for the Nextel 8350i (only over Wi-Fi)
- Keyboard shortcuts, including pause/play functionality using the mute key (even when Pandora is running in the background)
- Focus cursor on Now Playing screen should be easier to control on trackball devices
- Various other minor enhancements and fixes


In anticipation of some of the questions that may come up, here are some additional notes:

- To re-iterate: you can get to the "Options" screen from the menu on the "Station List" screen
- By default Bluetooth is disabled. Once enabled, it will try to use A2DP and if that fails, regular Blutooth. If no Bluetooth channels are working (i.e. no BT headsets are paired and on), the regular audio paths will be used (headphones or speakerphone)
- If you add or remove a Bluetooth headset while music is playing in Pandora, you may need to pause/play the song for the correct audio routing to kick in (or wait for the next song to start)
- In our testing, not all A2DP headsets worked properly with all BlackBerry devices. However, these headsets also had problems playing music with the native media player so this issue seems to be out of our control. For example, on a Curve 8330 the Sony DR-BT160As headset exhibited "crackling" and tempo shifts (audio playing slower than it should) in both Pandora and the BlackBerry media player
- Not all mono Bluetooth headsets are capable of playing music
- When using both Bluetooth A2DP and Wi-Fi, the audio may cut out for brief periods during network activity. We're currently investigating the cause of this.
- The 8350i is "Wi-Fi only" because in our testing, the iDEN mobile network was not fast enough to keep up with our audio streams
- Stereo AAC-HE streams over the mobile network will have to wait, we're still working on some issues
- Still no resolution on audio issues encountered by some Storm devices (songs starting from beginning after a call, not auto-advancing, etc.)
- Keyboard shortcuts are as follows:
SPACE or mute key - Play/Pause (mute key works while Pandora is backgrounded, too)
S - Skip
U - Thumb up
D - Thumb down
L - Station list
C - Close ad
M - More info for ad

Also, just a friendly reminder that if you are using Pandora over the mobile network you WILL need a BlackBerry data plan with "unlimited" data. If you have any problems connecting to Pandora please email pandora-support@pandora.com and they can walk you through some troubleshooting steps to try and resolve your problems.

Thanks!

Marc @ Pandora

Thanks for the update info. Just downloaded the updated version.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Thanks for the update.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Thanks Marc -- just downloaded and installed on my 8900. Looks good so far...

Thanks. Pandora rocks!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

thanks checkin it out now

I wish Pandora could allow me to choose if I wanted to go to my stations page without playing the previous station upon startup. There are times when I load Pandora, I'd rather not listen to the last station played before shutting down the application from the previous session. If I want to listen to a different station I have to wait to the previous station loads, then stop it, go to my stations page, and then I'm able to choose another station. That's my only gripe.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Thanks for this

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Originally Posted by cdf3:
I wish Pandora could allow me to choose if I wanted to go to my stations page without playing the previous station upon startup. There are times when I load Pandora, I'd rather not listen to the last station played before shutting down the application from the previous session. If I want to listen to a different station I have to wait to the previous station loads, then stop it, go to my stations page, and then I'm able to choose another station. That's my only gripe.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I'll suggest this to our product development team - it seems like something that might belong in the "options" screen.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Marc @ Pandora

Thanks. I've been looking for it in the options section, but could never locate it. I can't wait until they add this feature.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Thanks Marc, This is GREAT!!
No problems running this version with Storm .122 OS songs seem to advance fine. :-)

Not to sound Nagging, cuz it's not but have you heard any rumours about a stereo version yet?

I'd even pay if the sound quality was great [not that it isn't good already].

UPDATE: The new player played the first two songs with no problems. However, the player stopped after the second song -0:00 but did not go to the new song. What is interesting is the fact that it thinks the song is still playing but it will not let you pause it. Not sure what to do other than close and reopen player. When pressing the advance button. Message reply is "Please wait until the next song is completely loaded".

Guess I will have to retract original statement of "no problems with songs advancing". :-)

Thanks,

--Joey

Originally Posted by peike:
UPDATE: The new player played the first two songs with no problems. However, the player stopped after the second song -0:00 but did not go to the new song. What is interesting is the fact that it thinks the song is still playing but it will not let you pause it. Not sure what to do other than close and reopen player. When pressing the advance button. Message reply is "Please wait until the next song is completely loaded".

Thanks Joey - we're working hard with RIM to figure out why the Storm does this sometimes, even on the latest .122 firmware. If I can't get information this week I'll be sure to corner some engineers next week at WES 2009 to get some answers. In the meantime, thanks for your patience!

Marc @ Pandora

Thanks for the heads up Marc! By the way, do you know what changed in version 1.0.2 that made it break on Bolds running OS 5.0? And do you know if 1.0.3 fixes whatever it is that made it break in 1.0.2?

I know that 5.0 is not an official platform yet and don't expect you to address it before it's time, so I'll absolutely be patient, but it would be nice to know WHEN there's a version that will work with 5.0 so I don't keep overwriting my working 1.0.1 version with a version that doesn't work and have to restore from backup.

Originally Posted by digitalb0y:
Thanks for the heads up Marc! By the way, do you know what changed in version 1.0.2 that made it break on Bolds running OS 5.0? And do you know if 1.0.3 fixes whatever it is that made it break in 1.0.2?

I know that 5.0 is not an official platform yet and don't expect you to address it before it's time, so I'll absolutely be patient, but it would be nice to know WHEN there's a version that will work with 5.0 so I don't keep overwriting my working 1.0.1 version with a version that doesn't work and have to restore from backup.

We haven't tested on 5.0 (our test matrix on supported phones and networks is big enough as is!) so I don't know what would have changed in 1.0.2 to cause it to not work - but you are more than welcome to give 1.0.3 a try and report on your findings. I'm sure other adventurous beta testers on 5.0 would like to know. :-)

Marc @ Pandora

1.0.3 on WiFi is very, very choppy! :-)