By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard about all the big features of both iPhone 4 and iOS 4 (the artist formerly known as iPhone OS 4, which we heard about previously). But something that Apple didn’t address too much today was a feature I’m most looking forward to: background tasks. I was pretty sure that being able to run apps like Pandora in the background while I do other things on the iPhone was going to be awesome. And I confirmed that today.
During the hands-on time after the keynote today at WWDC, I got a chance to play around with a new version of Pandora — one that runs in the background with iOS 4. As you can see in the video below, the way Apple does this is both smart and seamless.
There are a new set of music controls at the bottom of the screen when you double-click the home button and swipe once to the left. Normally, these controls are for the iPod app on the iPhone, but when you start a song on Pandora and then leave, Pandora is able to take over these controls. This means that not only can you listen to Pandora music in the background, but you can control it without having to go back into the Pandora app itself.
Simply put: this is a killer feature and will make one of the most popular apps of all time on the iPhone (Pandora) even more popular. Those new investors must be happy.
Pandora Radio is an internet radio service, recommendation service, and the custodian of the Music Genome Project. Users enter a song or artist that they enjoy, and the service responds by playing selections that are musically similar. Users provide feedback on approval or disapproval of individual songs, which Pandora takes into account for future selections. While listening, users are offered the ability to buy the songs or albums at various online retailers. As part of the Music Genome Project, over...
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