92% of iTunes Radio listeners still use Pandora, says new report

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 73
    iTunes Radio got me to buy my first song, surely this is inaccurate.
  • Reply 42 of 73
    Only reason I continue to use Pandora is that my Logitech Squeezebox doesn't do iTunes Radio.

    Want an easy way to screw up a Pandora channel? "Like" a Grateful Dead song. Shortly your Boston or Phish channel morphs into a Grateful Dead channel. You'll be "disliking" GD tunes for a month before restoring some semblance of order.
  • Reply 42 of 73
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,727member
    creep wrote: »
    2 hours??  I've had it happen to me consistently over the course of just 30-45 minutes.  If you just want hits, iTR is the way to go.  As a music "discovery" service, I think there's still a ways to go.

    And yet for me any many others ... zero problems. So I wonder what the common denominator is with the folks having a problem?

    What gives me an inkling is the guy saying his Apple TV has the same problem so I'm thinking a corruption in the iCloud database for the people's accounts having the problem. It obviously can't be local if it is on Apple TV and the iPhone.

    Can you delete everything and start over I wonder?
  • Reply 44 of 73
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,727member
    iTunes Radio got me to buy my first song, surely this is inaccurate.

    Can you explain that statement? I'm confused.
  • Reply 45 of 73

    Never used iTunes Radio much, but because of this article I decided to give it a try and been listening for about two hours at work now. Only 3-4 ads, about every 30-40 minutes I guess - not bad to me and only one. Made several custom 'stations' and they play a nice mix of songs. No complaints from me, also thanks to being grandfathered into AT&T unlimited data.

  • Reply 46 of 73
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Creep View Post

     

     

    2 hours??  I've had it happen to me consistently over the course of just 30-45 minutes.  If you just want hits, iTR is the way to go.  As a music "discovery" service, I think there's still a ways to go.


     

    Just started using iTR today and I already found this to be false. If you hit the (i) info icon on the top-center there is an option to 'Tune This Station' where you can select to play the 'Hits' or 'Discovery' of new songs or a 'Variety', etc. Maybe people should explore before complaining or posting false info.

  • Reply 47 of 73
    I like the fact that I now have two choices that I both like. I hope that they can both evolve and improve. I can definitely tell which I am listening to and I hope they both retain that distinct flavor.
  • Reply 48 of 73
    envirogenvirog Posts: 188member
    I like the fit & finish of the user experience on iTunes Radio, though the music app still crashes sometimes on both my iPhone 5s and iPad mini. Sadly, the genre of music I listen to most electronic/dance/world/chill needs major improvement in the songs automatically selected to play based on my seed artist & tracks. As one reviewer stated in their blog, iTunes Radio needs to hire someone to help curate the above mentioned genres to make them relevant to the user's taste. iTunes Radio, on the otherhand does a better job at this process than Pandora does when it comes to Pop, hip-hop, R & B, etc. At least in my experience anyway. For electronic/dance/world/chill Pandora is still my go to streaming service for these genres.
  • Reply 49 of 73
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,808member
    Maybe because iTunes Radio sucks and it doesn't play correctly. It will constantly play songs you tell it not to, sometimes it plays the same song over and over again and you have to use a skip to get to continue to the next song. Then it might play a song you already told it not to play. Now, I have one of my playlists that don't work at all that I've already spent a long time getting it the way I wanted. Apparently its broke forever.

    I think Apple should have tested this more and not rushed its release. Its not ready for prime time.

    I'll be sticking to Spotify.
  • Reply 50 of 73
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    Hmmm... This smells of a report with an agenda...

    First, if you are going to measure adoption of iTunes Radio vs. Pandora on iOS devices, you would only survey iOS 7 users... Obviously, users of prior versions do not have access to iTunes Radio, so of course they are not going to be using it... That immediately distorts the numbers...
    "A survey of more than 800 iOS device owners shows that of those who have tried Apple's new iTunes Radio"
    If they don't have iOS 7, they could not have used it, so the numbers are correct.
    If you only count those who are running iOS7
    You cannot count any other iOS users since they don't have ITunes Radio.
    then it looks like over 11% of those users have ditched Pandora entirely...
    It's 8% per the article.
    And well more than half of iOS7 users are at least 'splitting' their listening hours...and quite different from the headline...
    "forty-four percent split their listening time roughly equally"
  • Reply 51 of 73
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gwmac View Post

     

    I have been trying it and here is what I don't like. It will just stop playing for no reason at times and is hard to get the music started again. It is not a cell signal issue either because Pandora will play fine if I try. I also don't like the fact that I cannot train or fine tune my stations. There is no way to give a thumbs up/down or rate from 1 to 10 stars for example. I am also hearing the same songs far too often. Unless they improve the ability to train stations I think I will just stick with Pandora which seems to know what I like far better after all these years. 


    There is a way to tune your station on iTunes radio, by selecting "play more like this" (the current song playing) or selecting "never play this song" (again during the current song playing).

  • Reply 52 of 73
    I've tried Pandora in the past but found myself skipping songs all the time. I just didn't hear what I wanted to. I do use iTunes Radio when I'm walking or driving someplace farther than my work commute - sometimes. But usually I listen to what's on my iPod or I listen to Songza. I really like Songza the most of all the "radio" offerings. It delivers music to me based on my mood rather than some "genome". I find the Songza approach to be much more satisfying.

    How do I listen?

    Pandora 0%
    iPod/iPhone Library 70%
    Songza 25%
    iTunes Radio 5%

    How do I discover new music?

    Asking my friends what's that I'm hearing them listen to? 84.5%
    Songza 10.5%
    Terrestrial Radio 5% (I learned about Adele and many others on NPR well before they were household names.)
  • Reply 53 of 73
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by EnviroG View Post



    I like the fit & finish of the user experience on iTunes Radio, though the music app still crashes sometimes on both my iPhone 5s and iPad mini. Sadly, the genre of music I listen to most electronic/dance/world/chill needs major improvement in the songs automatically selected to play based on my seed artist & tracks. As one reviewer stated in their blog, iTunes Radio needs to hire someone to help curate the above mentioned genres to make them relevant to the user's taste. iTunes Radio, on the otherhand does a better job at this process than Pandora does when it comes to Pop, hip-hop, R & B, etc. At least in my experience anyway. For electronic/dance/world/chill Pandora is still my go to streaming service for these genres.

    The actually have hired numerous people to curate there radio stations.  It was in  a news article a while back..  It takes time to curate stations.  They will get better. This article talks about Apple talking with Music industry companies and actually hiring music programmers for distinctive groups or genres of music and they are actively doing this right now.  http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57603188-37/how-apples-itunes-radio-will-rock-the-world/

     

    There are many more articles like this.

    iTunes radio is young and will get much better.  Give it a little time.

  • Reply 54 of 73
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    I'd used Pandora for about 8 months before September. Once I began using iTunes Radio I never felt the urge to go back to Pandora. iTunes Radio taps a music library that's, what, 20 times the number of tracks versus Pandora? It's easy to review my listening history or wish list songs, preview each and buy those I like. It's nice to have that extra opportunity to go back and preview them again; I'm not forced to make a snap decision or risk forgetting about a track I liked. After a couple weeks, I deleted the Pandora app off all my devices.
  • Reply 55 of 73
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post

     

    92% of iTunes Radio listeners still use Pandora, says new report

     

    Not for long. 


    Another way of stating this is that, after a month with iTunes Radio on the market, fully 8% of Pandora users have abandoned that service in favor of iTunes Radio.  Considering it took ten years for Pandora to acquire it's user base, that means iTunes Radio stole away nearly a full year's worth of Pandora's customer acquisition in just one month.  That can't be good news to Pandora's management.

  • Reply 56 of 73
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,727member
    Another way of stating this is that, after a month with iTunes Radio on the market, fully 8% of Pandora users have abandoned that service in favor of iTunes Radio.  Considering it took ten years for Pandora to acquire it's user base, that means iTunes Radio stole away nearly a full year's worth of Pandora's customer acquisition in just one month.  That can't be good news to Pandora's management.

    And Apple doesn't need the money. It's just another part of the Eco system that sells hardware. Pandora needs the money desperately .... It's all over before it starts.
  • Reply 57 of 73
    jasenj1jasenj1 Posts: 923member

    I use Spotify the vast majority of the time. I like listening to albums and artist catalogs.

     

    I've tried iTR a bit and I agree with those who are unhappy with its song selections. Pandora gives me a nice wide variety, but still coherent. iTR tends to play artists from the same time period. For example, on Pandora a station seeded with The Black Keys will play Led Zeppelin, blues from the 50s, and some contemporary bands like The White Stripes. A similar station on iTR will only play bands from the 2000s - even if they are not very similar to the seed.

     

    I also haven't bought into iTR's user interface. It just hasn't hooked me yet. It feels awkward.

     

    - Jasen.

  • Reply 58 of 73
    axelaxel Posts: 2member

    Yeah , of coarse it is really better than iTunes ........ for latest and in new you are really interested

  • Reply 59 of 73

    iTunes radio smokes the competition. iTunes has a huge selection of music, and then the end of it all was when i plugged it into my automobile stereo. iTunes sound quality BLOWS AWAY pandora and XM who's washed out mp3's must be 128k or worse...it sounds lame next to iTunes .

    thats all it took to get me 

  • Reply 60 of 73
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RadarTheKat View Post

     

    Another way of stating this is that, after a month with iTunes Radio on the market, fully 8% of Pandora users have abandoned that service in favor of iTunes Radio.  Considering it took ten years for Pandora to acquire it's user base, that means iTunes Radio stole away nearly a full year's worth of Pandora's customer acquisition in just one month.  That can't be good news to Pandora's management.


    That's not what this study states. The survey is targeting a sample of iTunes Radio users. You'd want a stratified sample of Pandora users across all platforms before and after the implementation of iTunes Radio to determine attrition.

     

    Seems from this that Pandora is pretty resilient, as iTunes Radio is so much better integrated into iOS 7 (purchasing songs, already on the phone, buy songs right from the app, etc). They've really demonstrated their value in a market that was already rife with competition even before Apple got into the game.

     

    Good to note also that Pandora works through any desktop/laptop web browser, as well as on Android devices, both of which have a higher "Installed Base" than iOS 7 devices. I'd guess they're aware that they'll clearly lose share among Mac/iOS7 users, but as the overall market of smartphone users expands, they'll likely continue to grow their total number of users. iTunes Match is likely a strong competitor that will knock them from #1 in market share to #2 but only among a few of the platforms on which they compete.

     

     

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