Have any of you been using Pandora via an Iphone in your Mini?

 

Yes. Since I got mine.

 

Yes!! It's great!!

 

Dropping Sirius for Pandora. At a $150+ for Sirius, that is a no-brainer. I am also going to try Songza.

 

How does it compare to Sirius? In terms of sound quality and reception?

 

You can lose it out in the boonies. Sirius, you almost never lose. Pandora will blank out if reception is poor. It seems like they do two things with Pandora, but I am just guessing based on it's actions on a recent long trip:

1. They pre-load at least one song from your favorite stations, which plays while it is establishing download for the next songs.
2. They download one or more songs at a time, so the song is not live streaming so much as it is downloaded quickly, and then it plays, so it seems to load in bursts.

Pandora quit on me several times during my 2,000 mile trek, out in the wilderness of the Southwest. It had trouble loading further songs, and it would struggle to get signal, meanwhile causing my iPhone to be 'busy'

Sirius reception came in at all times, so I would switch to Sirius until I got signal back for Pandora. Around home, Pandora is enough. Out in the wilds, Sirius is better. I LOVE LaughUSA, which plays snippets of clean comedy, from Bob Hope's USO shows in the 1940's, to Bill Cosby currently, and comedy songs as well. We also like the 60's on 6, and the 70's on 7. I dropped my Sirius sub when it expired, and in a couple of weeks they were calling and offering discounts. Got them down to about $120/year. Hubby likes it, and if we have Sirius, he doesn't mind going on club drives. Trouble is, he just barely remembers the songs, so he is a half beat behind, and fakes most of the words. :laugh:

 

Quality and reception varies depending on available cell phone coverage. When I pass thru spotty areas along coastal highways there is occasional interuption. I like the fact that it learns what groups/songs you prefer over time requiring little input from the user.

Also there are two quality sound "settings" but have not noticed a difference in reception between them even if they say so....

 

As to sound quality... correct me if I am wrong, please, but it is a digital download.... so it is either good, or not there at all. A digital song doesn't rely on distance or reception like radio does. And Sirius is also digital. So, both of them have good quality sound, unlike a radio that can get static or overlap. The question is whether you can get signal for Pandora all of the time or not.

Also, Sirius has traffic and weather for all major cities, and tons of sports and talk stations. So, if you just want music, tailored to your own taste, and you aren't traveling through a lot of wilderness, Pandora is the way to go. If you want more than songs, or are traveling in a lot of spotty places, get Sirius. You can still have Pandora for free, and use it when you want to. If you use the Y cable (depending on your car, I guess?) you are also charging your phone or mp3.

Oh, and if you like Pandora, get the subscribed version, so you don't get commercials and you can skip more songs. With the free version, if you skip a song because you don't like it, you get a commercial. And every once in a while, you get a commercial. Since there aren't very many advertisers, the commercials get boring really quickly. So, with Pandora One, it's like $1.99 a month, and no commercials and multiple skips. I use it all day as I work, so it is way worth it to me. I have nine channels that I can choose from, and it is beginning to mix the channels which is fun. The best part is when you hear a song that you love, or forgot about and now remember that you love it, you hit the thumbs up and it goes into your regular rotation. I love the customization inherent in Pandora!

 

Around town it's great but I also lose reception in outlying areas.

 

Pandora is digital so quality shouldn't vary unless it is the variation in quality of the recording. I listen to some older stuff (Areosmith, ELP and the like) where the bass part of the recording doesn't seem to be there. Newer stuff is better in that respect. I like the fact that you have a better choice of music. There have been times where I would flip channels on Sirius and have found nothing I liked listening to (just like Cable).

My experience is that the overall quality is great, until it drops, which happens where you have no cell reception. Also, on the iPhone, the volume out of the Aux plug is really low (yes, I have the volume all the way up on the phone). Still, I can live with that as, when I lose Pandora, I just turn up the volume on the engine, which is the sweetest sound the car makes.

 

I only listen to Pandora and Howard in my MINI except for if I'm out in the mountains I'll sometimes turn on a Sirius music station since that's the only thing that works out there. The pandora integration is an awesome feature that all of my friends are super jealous of.

Can you listen to Pandora even if you don't have MINI Connected? How do you navigate it if so?

 

I only have the aux in and usb port, and I can listen to it, and navigate it using the steering wheel controls or the iphone itself. Sometimes the steering wheel controls work, sometimes they don't. Sees like the Pandora has to be running first, then plug in the iPhone to the Y cable, and then I can see it through the radio and use the controls. Otherwise, the radio part is blank, and I use the iPhone controls themselves.

When plugged in, the radio screen offers it as "ipod".

 

Oh, so it's just like using the AUX in then? Does "Pandora" show up as a source or anything?

I get to navigate it like this

 

Pandora's quality is crap if you are just streaming the free version. You really need to upgrade to get good quality. I don't have an Iphone so I am not sure about the plug in feature because my Droid Razr is plugged in through the auxiliary port.

 

I think the quality is pretty good for internet radio. Not as good as HD radio but about the same as satellite. The one thing I've noticed is that I can't crank the volume quite as loud with Pandora as I can other sources. I'd say Pandora is about 15% quieter than everything else.

I also have never heard an ad using the Pandora Connected app so that's a huge bonus too. A huge downside is that you have to leave the Pandora iPhone app open and if you multi-task to anything else the app disconnects from the MINI and your music stops. This has been made slightly better with iOS 6 where you can read text messages from the "Office" connected app.

 

I plan to stream Pandora through Bluetooth from my Android. I tested that concept on a Connected-equipped model at the dealership and it worked like a charm. My Mini should arrive by mid-October.

 

Data plans can be expensive. Streaming Pandora uses bunches of data. If you don't have unlimited data using Pandora can easily be more expensive than Sirius.

 

I used to think this. I have unlimited data thru Verizon but I think I tipped 2GB one time since 2007 when I got the first iPhone. With 7 days left in my billing cycle, I've used 1.54GB and I use Pandora as my main source of music.

I also receive, open, and reply to probably about 50 emails per day, 25% of which have huge pictures attached because my boss does not know how to resize pictures before sending them. I'm constantly browsing NAM and other sites on my phone as well as facetime over 3G. I don't know of anything else I could do to use more data and I'm far under the limit.

 

You can put an app on your phone that alerts you when you are getting close to your limits. Pandora doesn't seem to take as much as streaming a movie or something like that... as I mentioned, I think that the songs are 'bundled' as downloads, several at a time. So it isn't streaming the whole time it is playing.

To answer a previous question, for those of us without Connected, at least with my 2011 audio set up (plain old standard system) the iPhone shows as 'ipod' in the mode selections, and when chosen and using Pandora, it shows the title of the song that is playing, just as it would using the radio or Sirius. And the steering wheel button will allow jumping to the next song. Unplugging the iPhone from the Y cable turns off the Pandora app, so you don't have to do it separately, just as it does when you pull it out of the docking station. I'm going to buy a 'docking cable extension' cord so that the iPhone can be in the Cravenspeed scissor holder attached to the tach, and run the cord behind the knee shield, so that it is mostly hidden from sight.

 

you could always stream netflix. That uses a huge chunk of data.

 

Ok, well then in the case of Pandora, your wrong.


If you check the Pandora Preferences they have two "network quality" settings for the streaming and state at the higher setting the music will have better sound quality but may have more skips and hesitations...

 

Thank you, Grey Raven, I didn't know that. Here is a further quote from a review: "Subscribing to Pandora One also gives you other benefits like an option to switch to a higher quality streaming mode. During our listening testing, this enhanced audio mode made a big difference -- streams come down at 192 Kbps rather than 128 Kbps. "
I was thinking more about the 'either you get the download, or it is incomplete and it doesn't play at all' vs. a traditional transmission from a radio station, where you can get overlap, static, etc. I wasn't considering that streaming at a higher bit rate would giver higher quality. I haven't noticed skips and hesitation for Pandora One, but am usually listening while doing something else so I may not have noticed. Thank you for pointing that out, it lead to reading some interesting articles on exactly how it all works.

 

Still, being digital you get the quality you are set at until you lose it. The settings are similar to the difference between MP3 and a CD. MP3 has a lower quality than a CD has. Because it is digital it won't change quality like the regular analog broadcast will as the signal weakens. There should be no static or otherwise. That is not to say that it won't skip or hesitate. If you lose signal for a second it could skip or if the 3G system get bogged down it may hesitate. However, where I am at, the iPhone has worked great. Have not tried the higher quality setting, though. Not sure the standard MINI radio is worth it.

 

I just tried Pandora on my '12 MCS. I have a standard radio with usb and the mfsw. The sound is similar to Sirius but other than volume, my steering wheel controls don't work. To me its just another alternate, but I wouldn't give up Sirius for it.

 

Try Accu Radio ap. No comercials an u pick the type of music. Play it thru Iphone good reception on 3G.