Pandora today rolled out a series of new features that, again, are aimed at making the streaming music service more competitive with the likes of Spotify and other competitors. As you may recall, the company recently introduced “thumbprint radio” – a way for the service to create a mix of user favorites and recommendations, which seemed a shot against Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” playlist.
Now Pandora has introduced a number of other changes into its app, including, most notably a new destination for music discovery called “Browse,” updated navigation, and a new “mini-player.”
Does “Browse” sound familiar? It should: “Browse” is also the name of Spotify’s music discovery destination.
Pandora’s take, however, is a little different, as its section is more personalized.
Instead of showing you popular artists and stations, the company says it will only serve up those artists and sections that are relevant to you. And this section will continue to improve the more you use the app. That, in fact, sounds a bit more like Apple Music’s “For You” section, despite the name’s similarities with Spotify.

In addition, this area will include recommendations of new stations based on your listening activity, a way to preview stations’ content, and metrics that show you how many others are listening to your favorite artists.
“Finding new music should be a simple and enjoyable experience,” said Chris Phillips, chief product officer of Pandora, in a statement about the changes. “Our musicologists have scored millions of songs to find the perfect music just for you. The new Browse feature makes it easy to find the music you love whether you know what you want, or need a little help discovering music you didn’t know existed,” he added.

The service also today introduced a new look and feel and other tweaks, like a way to organize your “My Station” list in either “recent” or “alphabetical” order, as well as redesigned Artist pages.
Your Stations, Feed, Profile and Settings have also moved to a new Fly-Out menu in the top-left corner, says Pandora. Notably, this, too, is reminiscent of Spotify’s user interface.
But the bigger change is the introduction of a new “Mini Player” that sits in the bottom of the app, offering one-tap access to the music that’s playing.
Pandora says the new “Browse” experience is rolling out now to users of Pandora’s iOS app in the U.S., New Zealand and Australia. The Android version, meanwhile, will arrive “soon,” but the company did not provide an ETA.
