Feature likely to spread to other music services

Pandora has released an update to its app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, bringing it up to version 3.1. The Pandora service lets users stream a personalized radio station, based on a particular artist, song or composer. New to v3.1 is just one major feature, that being backgrounding; after jumping to another app, Pandora can continue to play music.

As necessary, external playback controls can be launched to pause or skip backwards and forwards through tracks. Because the feature is dependent on iOS 4, backgrounding does not work on the iPad and earlier versions of the iPhone and Touch. The update otherwise makes minor bugfixes and enhancements.

Background audio is likely to be added to numerous music apps in the next few months. Until now, only Apple's integrated iPod app has been able to play music while other apps are active. This has limited the usefulness of third-party titles like Pandora, Last.fm and Slacker, which have not, for example, been able to play while a person is browsing the web.

by MacNN Staff