Pandora Radio is one of my absolute favorite iPhone apps. (It's also one of my favorite Web sites, so if you don't own an iPhone or iPod touch, you can still enjoy the magic of Pandora on the Web at http://www.pandora.com.)

What is Pandora Radio? Simply put, Pandora Radio streams music you're almost certain to enjoy to your iPhone. Sounds impossible but it not only works, it works incredibly well.

There?s no shortage of applications that can stream music to your iPhone or iPod touch. But while many Internet-based radio stations play great music, the music they play is selected by a program director or disk jockey who has no idea what you might enjoy hearing.

Pandora Radio is an iPhone/iPod touch app that plays only music it thinks you will enjoy. Just tell Pandora an artist or artists and/or a song or songs you like. Pandora then creates a custom radio station that plays only songs it thinks you?ll like based on the Music Genome Project?s analysis of nearly 400 different song attributes.

What's the Music Genome Project? According to Wikipedia:

The Music Genome Project, created in January 2000, is an effort founded by Will Glaser, Jon Kraft, and Tim Westergren to "capture the essence of music at the fundamental level" using over 400 attributes to describe songs and a complex mathematical algorithm to organize them. The company Savage Beast Technologies was formed to run the project.

As each song plays, you have the option of telling Pandora that you like it (thumbs up) or dislike it (thumbs down). Then Pandora uses your feedback to find more songs you?re likely to like.

You can create as many stations as you like, and you can also choose more than one of your stations and listen to a mix of songs from them all (called a QuickMix).

For example, I?ve got an Elvis Costello station, a Joni Mitchell station, a Tom Petty/Byrds/Hollies/Beatles station (Jangly Guitars), and a few more as shown here:

It is uncanny how well it works. Here's another example: I don?t know that much about jazz music, but I wanted a station that played instrumental jazz similar to the only jazz album I know I like, Dave Brubeck?s Take Five. Pandora came through with a Dave Brubeck station that plays incredible jazz songs by artists I wasn't previously familiar with such as Red Garland, Joe Sample, Thelonious Monk, and others.

Here?s another example: I love Pink Floyd but I?ve got quite a few of their albums and would love to be introduced to other artists that play similar material. Pandora came through again, introducing me to space rock tunes by artists I?d never heard of, like the Meeting Places and Mushroom, as well as spacey rock songs I?d never heard by artists I did know, like I?ve Been Waiting For You by David Bowie.

Every station has a convenient menu that lets you bookmark a song or artist, buy what you?re listening to from the iTunes store, or share the station with a friend. And there?s another button that explains why the current song was selected.

I used to listen to a lot of iPod music on my iPhone but Pandora is so wonderful that I usually choose to listen to it rather than my own music. It really is that good.

The Bottom Line

Pandora Radio may just be my absolute favorite iPhone/iPod touch application regardless of price. Give it a try and you'll be hooked, too.