The best friend of any college student is often music. When it comes to studying, people can often be found with their headphones in listening to their favorite music as a way to help them prepare for that next big test, finish the essay, or get them through some boring textbook.

Whatever someone is working on, music is a huge part of the homework process. People listen to different types of music, yes, but the thing I find most interesting are the different sources that people get their music from.

Although some listen straight off of their iPods or laptops, Internet radio is far and away the popular way to get the tunes people are looking for.

There are many players in this industry including Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Rdio, but the clear dominant source in this market is Pandora.

Pandora started in 2000 and has taken off in the last 14 years.

Along with popular online sources of music from the computer, there are mobile apps that can be found in some newer cars.

Pandora has dominated this market without a significant challenge for some time. However, a new player has emerged into this market and is taking a shot at the internet radio industry: Apple.

iTunes Radio came out with the last round of updates for apple devices. It provides an online music source linked directly to iTunes.

When doing a side-by-side comparison, the first thing to look at is the music library of both iTunes Radio and Pandora.

I have found that both do a pretty good job at sticking to the genre or artist seed that was used to create the station. However, over a long period of time, Pandora has an annoying habit of playing several songs over and over.

This is just a minor problem with Pandora that is easily solved with some of the interface options such as putting a song away for a while.

The biggest drawback I have found with Pandora has been that every now and then, they will play a streak of songs that I have never heard of, simply because they fit the category of music I have chosen to play.

The songs can be skipped or disliked, but Apple has gone a step further with dealing with this problem. Within its settings, there is an option with iTunes Radio to play either “hits only,” “mix,” or an option that allows the listener to hear music that isn’t as mainstream.

This allows users to filter the music on the station to exactly what they want to listen to.

However, Pandora also features that iTunes Radio hasn’t developed.

Pandora allows for users to add more seeds to their station simply by typing in another artist. This adds more variety to the station.

Apple has not allowed for this as far as I know. Instead, they have an option that allows users to click a star which tells iTunes Radio to play more songs like the one playing right now.

As both user interfaces are equally navigable, my personal choice between the two is still Pandora. The music library of both is vast, but Pandora in my view is superior in selecting the exact music I want to listen to with the feature of adding more seeds to the station.

 Jerry Young / KSLC

Jerry       Young      can          be            reached   at             [email protected]