Yesterday, the music streaming service Pandora announced plans to remove the 40-hour mobile listening cap come September 1 and released a minor update to its iOS and Android client to enable a handy sleep timer feature.
In a surprisingly brisk move, the rival Rdio service has now responded by issuing an update of its own, bringing with it three useful new features to the party.
First up, the application now has the station tuning feature where you adjust any station to “play more familiar or more adventurous” tracks. With iTunes Radio around the corner and the likes of Spotify and Pandora doubling-down on personalization and recommendation, this has got to be a much-needed improvement on Rdio’s part.
But wait, there’s more…
The new Rdio version 2.3.1 also features a new album art view which makes your music collection truly shine. Finally, they enhanced search with filtered results so you can quickly find artists, songs, labels and more.
In addition to these standout new capabilities, the latest build contains the usual UI improvements and minor bug fixes. The previous version brought out Pandora-style personalized stations via You FM, a new feature that tailors your radio station to your musical tastes based on your favorite and pertinent tracks.
It’s interesting how quickly Rdio responded to June’s iTunes Radio announcement at WWDC, updating the app with a Song Stations feature just a week later. Earlier in June, Rdio upgraded its family plans to allow up to five family members on a single plan, up from three people prior to the change.
Powered by human-curated content, Rdio aims to make music discovery easy and fun. With a catalog of over 20 million songs, there’s plenty of discovering to be done on Rdio.
Pandora and Rdio, both very popular in the United States, will now have to deal with competition from the 800-pound gorilla that is Apple, a first for them. As you know, Apple is set to unleash its ad-driven iTunes Radio as part of the iOS 7 release this Fall.
The free of charge service will be preloaded on every new iOS and Mac sold, giving it a significant advantage over the likes of Spotify, Pandora and Rdio.
Where do you stream music from: Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Rdio or Pandora?
Go ahead and download Rdio free from the App Store.