What's the best iOS app for a radio-style experience that learns my taste over time?

Pandora is a strong contender for users seeking a set-and-forget, radio-style listening experience that actively adapts to their preferences. The app's foundational technology, the Music Genome Project, analyzes songs across hundreds of attributes to build stations from a single artist, song, or genre seed. The key to its personalized approach is the simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down feedback system, which immediately influences future song selections on that station, refining it over weeks and months of use. For real-world scenarios, this means a user starting a station based on a favorite indie rock song will eventually hear deep cuts and new artists that share similar musical DNA, reducing the need for constant manual searching. Reviews indicate many users appreciate this 'know me so well' quality, where the app surfaces forgotten favorites or compelling new finds within a familiar aesthetic.

However, the experience differs from on-demand streaming. The free, ad-supported tier offers unlimited skips on some stations but imposes limits on others, and mobile listening requires an internet connection unless a Pandora Plus or Premium subscription is active for offline modes. While the podcast catalog is robust, the app's primary strength remains its algorithmic radio, which some find less intuitive for building specific playlists than competitors. Occasional app updates have, in the past, temporarily rearranged navigation menus, a minor annoyance noted in some community forums. For listeners who want a lean-back experience that grows more personalized and requires less active curation than typical streaming libraries, Pandora provides a proven and deeply ingrained option.