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"Pandora, described as a custom Web radio service, has been quite well-received over the years. Though it started off solely as a Web page catering music streams based on users\u2019 personal musical preferences, it\u2019s grown to provide a voluminous catalog to everyone from PC owners to mobile broadband subscribers to those keen on bringing Web-based audio to their home theatre systems in streamlined fashion. This week Pandora added another option for listeners, once more with a focus on computer users, through the release of an Adobe Air application called Pandora Desktop Beta.\nSuffice it to say that upon installation of the browser-less utility Pandora loyalists will feel right at home. Within the confines of the Adobe Air platform, Pandora is virtually indistinguishable from its ancestor. It only seems to lack a subtly-placed square button, in evidence in the browser version, which would be useless for Desktop Beta users anyhow. So, on the whole, Pandora Desktop Beta is a carbon copy of the original.\n\nAs a person who thoroughly enjoys what Pandora offers within the browser, I must say I enjoy this launch very much. Yes, it would have perhaps been interesting to see the company work to construct a fresher item for its first PC-based out-of-browser experience (that wasn\u2019t in the form of a glitchy widget, which they released many months ago, and which in my own daily routine, fell into complete disuse not long after). But the fact of the matter is Pandora has slowly grown to become a well-engineered system, whether it\u2019s used on an old graybox, Sprint mobile phone, or a Slim Device's Squeezebox or whathaveyou. So if you\u2019re the type of person who wants to consume free custom music streams, PDB will likely serve you well.\nIn the brief time I spent with the Air application, I came across no flaws to speak of. It functions the same as it would in, say, Firefox or Internet Explorer. It should be said that the links located within the topmost menu on the page will trigger your default Web browser installations, rather than open within the application, which may annoy some users. But if music is your main focus, not sharing a QuickMix or reading the company blog, then Pandora Desktop Beta will prove useful in most circumstances. And I wouldn\u2019t think it too far-fetched to say that more refinements to the download are in the works.\n(Note: Pandora\u2019s developers mention a CPU-intensive performance issue for Mac users, which has been determined to be an issue on Adobe\u2019s end. However, being a Mac OS X 10.5 user, I can vouch to have had no problems . Do let us know if your own experiences differ.)"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/06/04/pandora-desktop-beta/>