Pandora, not the woman that opened a box of evils and not the planet in various science fiction movies and video games, the music streaming company has some interesting news for us all, but specifically for those of us with Google Glass. Each year, the company has all its employees not work for a day, and instead do cool things in what they call the ‘Hack-a-thon’, and titles of various types are awarded to the top four choices. Last year’s Hack-a-thon yielded something quite remarkable, and it involved Google Glass. The hack let you stream music on, not to from another device, but on the Glass hardware alone. Since the eyewear came with a little single-side earbud for your listening pleasure, it made sense to want to listen to music on it. If you’re like me or many other people nowadays, you probably have music playing in the background for most activities, online or not, and this feature sounds great. It gets better.
After the Hack-a-thon last year, given the novelty of the hack, Pandora’s team showed it off to Google, and they seemed to have liked it, since today marks the release of the Pandora for Glass app. How cool is that? Anyway, the Glass-based app lets you make use of the customized stations from your Pandora account, and listen to your heart’s content, thumbing-up when necessary. The set up of the new app is simple, and steps are on Pandora’s official blog posting about it, but we also have them here.
First, go to http://www.google.com/myglass on either your mobile device or computer. Second, go to the Glassware page and find Pandora. Third, on the detail page, turn ON Pandora and sign in with your account. Fourth, give permission for Pandora to access basic information. And lastly, Pandora’s app will be loaded automatically to your Glass, and you can enjoy the music wherever you go, no separate player needed. Next, though, are the three possible ways of enjoying this mobile music. You can listen through the built-in bone-conduction ‘speaker’, which requires no headphones, the single earbud that came in your Explorer kit, or use the micro USB double earbud accessory.
If you have Glass, do you listen to music on it, and if you don’t or didn’t, will you now that Pandora has an app for it? Do you think more music services should move into and onto the Glass-o-sphere and release apps for the headset, or let it stay the way it is? Let us know, and if you try the new Pandora for Glass app, tell us how it goes!