Pandora Now Playing on Xbox One

Ever since the Xbox One dropped last November, owners of the console have been clamoring for any other music service besides Xbox Music. Not that Microsoft’s product isn’t a bad service — it just isn’t free. If you were one of the many hoping that another option would pop up, rejoice! — Pandora has made its way to the Xbox One as a native app.

I’ve been playing with Pandora a bit this afternoon, and I can say with certainty that it’s going to make a lot of One owners very happy. For a lot of the people who own it, the Xbox One is the center of their entertainment world, so giving it the ability to act as a big-screen DJ is only natural.

Are there some flaws with the app? Absolutely. In the short time I’ve been testing it, I’ve come across a few holes, such as a lack of background play, and the inability to navigate the app while it’s snapped. When playing a game or using some other app, you have to full-screen Pandora to start or change a station, and I’m finding that to be really disruptive. The missing background play may be more a limitation of the One’s software, so I’m willing to look past that, but not making the app Snap-friendly outside of simply listening to music is simply inexcusable for an app that launched a year after the system.

But hey, it’s Pandora. It’s here, and it plays music really big on your TV. And if you’re willing to forget that Pandora’s Snap mode is super disappointing, you may find it fills a massive void in the Xbox One’s software lineup.

[h/t SlashGear]