Spotify Experimenting With New Pandora-Inspired Streaming App

Spotify is testing a new, standalone app for Android devices. As part of a new experiment, the company is testing a new Pandora-inspired music streaming app, aptly called Stations, that lets users tune into personalised stations without needing to manually look for music to play.

The idea behind the app is simple: it can be difficult to figure out what you want to listen to sometimes, so the Stations app helps you get around that by providing you with a bunch of different stations personalised to your taste. Like many personalised apps, Stations will learn over time and give you better suggestions for the different stations, and Spotify will also use the data to improve its personalised Discover Weekly playlists for each user.

The app doesn’t require you to type anything, and you can scroll to change between stations. Both free and premium users of Spotify can use Stations, although free users will have to listen to ads. Premium users will be surprised to see the lack of a skip button, though. “When you have access to all the music in the world, finding the right thing to play can feel like a challenge. With Stations, you can listen immediately, and switching stations is simple and seamless–no searching or typing needed. As you listen, it learns what you like and creates personalised stations that you’ll love,” Spotify noted in the app listing for Stations.

Stations is just a small experiment for now, so Spotify isn’t making it widely available, reports Variety. The app is currently limited to some countries, and there’s no iOS counterpart, either. If the experiment does turn out to be successful, Spotify will likely end up incorporating it into its primary app on all platforms.