Does anyone have an idea how to work around this problem? I'm listening to Pandora (or LastFM) and everything goes fine until display is switched off. Then the stream also stops and I have to tap the screen to hear the sweet tunes again. Maximum display off timeout is 5 minutes and it is very annoying to keep tapping. Surprisingly this happens also when the charger is connected... So can someone write a piece of code that "keeps tapping my screen" or restarts the timer before it hits 5 minutes? Or better yet a code that makes the Pandora audio stream act like the internet radio where the audio stream does not react to display switching off.

See - and vote on - bug #1006

Hmm.. Jakub has a good point. If there's a risk that flash ads and the like (well, most flash actually) is left running when the screen goes blank then there will be a lot of empty batteries..
I kind of liked that suggestion of having last.fm support in the media player instead. I have no idea if this is even close to feasible though.

10 months latter and this problem still exists. I have not updated to the 08 op. system though. Anyone have better Pandora performance with the new firmware?

NS

I'm loading Pandora to test it out for you now. In the meantime, I can tell you that OS2008 does provide the option of always keeping the display on when the Internet tablet is connected to a charger.

EDIT: Pandora does keep playing music even after the display turns off in the beta of OS2008 for the N800. (Now can someone make Pandora stop playing absolutely dreadful music regardless what initial seed I give it?)

Are you making sure to thumbs-down the songs you don't like? I absolutely love Pandora, but it did take a little bit of "tuning" to get it to play just music I like. Most of my stations (I have 3-5 that I listen to regularly) almost never play a song that I don't like anymore. The thumbs-down is really important.

Its also possible that you've seeded it with too many songs that are too different in nature, so its not quite sure what it is about songs that you actually like.

Anyway, if you are just using Pandora for the first time, I suggest that you tune it a bit more and I think you'll find it to be great.

And I'm glad that OS2008 seems to alleviate this problem, since one of the reasons I ordered the N800 is to use it for Pandora listening.
The N800 is sitting its box, waiting to be opened, but my wife is keeping it from me until I finish my exams! Its for my own good, she keeps telling me Just about a week left, which hopefully will be right around the time that OS2008 final release is out and Canola2 beta is released!

I don't want to hijack this thread with my frustrations with Pandora. I've spent weeks working with stations and never gotten past thumbs-downing 99% of what it plays. That's neither a technical issue nor Internet tablet related though. It's me. What's important is that OS2008 appears to make the service more useful to those who enjoy it.

Have fun!

sjgadsby,

No problem about hijacking the thread. I don't mind. On the contrary, Thanks for checking it out for us on your updated N800. Great to hear that it works better now. Does it respond more quickly also? There always seems to be delayed response when you make inputs. And I'm with 'Slip'. I really enjoy using Pandora. I suppose one thing you could do is to take the time to simply add in specific tunes you like to one of your stations. I think that's possible. Sorry to hear it's not working for you. It's an amazing system.



NS

I can't compare its performance against Opera or MicroB in OS2007. When I use Pandora it's with one of my desktop computers at work, not my N800. I did load Pandora once or twice in OS2007, but that was months ago, and was only to see how slow it happened after reading complaints here.

However, I've just tried out Pandora a bit more in MicroB in the OS2008 beta. From submitting "www.pandora.com" in the URL bar in an open browser window, to Pandora starting playback of a song, took 1 minute, 25 seconds. Obviously, that's with Pandora remembering my login from earlier in the day when I checked the service. That seems faster than I remember the OS2007 browsers performing the same trick.

Opening the "Guide us..." slide up panel took a looong time the first time I opened it, but was pleasantly quick on subsequent openings. (Sorry, I forgot to time the "looong" opening.)

The next track button seems to often ignore taps. (It turns yellow, but does nothing.) When it works, it takes a little under 20 seconds to begin playing the next track.

I hope this helps. Is there anything else I can try out for you?

Thanks for the report. That gives me a good idea of what to expect.
Nothing else for now. Thanks for asking.

NS