Us iPhone users are spoiled: We get to listen to Pandora's streaming web music for free thanks to its brilliant application (the top downloaded app for all of 2008 in the App Store). Owners of other devices, on other networks, haven't been so lucky, as many have to pay a monthly fee to access Pandora. But that's not the case with Sprint subscribers anymore as Pandora will now be free on phones that support it.
Previously, Sprint customers paid $2.99 a month for the priveledge of listening to Pandora over Sprint's high-speed network. Over 20 phones, including the Sprint Instinct will now support the free Pandora, with more rolling out over time. Users will be able to bookmark songs on Pandora and purchase them on the Sprint Music Store.
Such a move will undoubtedly help Pandora gain even more users. Pandora's use on mobile devices (which was first launched with Sprint in 2007) is a powerful aspect of the service. It makes the discovery of music portable, and makes it so you don't always have to carry around your entire music collection, which many phones still cannot do. I have a large collection of music, but I still need a way to discover new tracks. Pandora gives me that since I've long abandoned traditional radio.
Just as with its desktop-based experience through the web browser, Pandora on mobile serves up advertisements to users as they listen. This new, free Sprint version will apparently contain audio advertising, which is something I haven't come across yet in my use of the service (the iPhone uses overlay ads). I would hope this won't be too obtrusive.
It would seem that since dodging a potentially fatal bullet with regards to Internet music royalty rates earlier this year, Pandora is flourishing. Its iPhone app alone has over 2 million users.