• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 21, 2013

Online radio service Pandora on Wednesday announced extending its app to the latest version of the Windows Phone platform. To entice users to download the app, Microsoft is allowing Windows Phone 8 users to get an ad-free version of Pandora through the rest of the year.

The app offers certain unique features via the Microsoft platform. Through its signature “live tiles”, for example, users can pin their favorite personalized radio stations to the Start screen of their phone for easier access. Further, launching Pandora through the Kids Corner feature in Windows Phone automatically activates the explicit content filter for young listeners.

Pandora is a welcome addition for Windows Phone 8 but Microsoft will have to continue adding popular apps to better compete with the dominant app stores tied to iOS and Android.