This morning, the company announced the launch of a native desktop app for Mac, with a Windows version to soon follow.

The app supports keyboard controls, on-screen notifications for the music currently playing and a way to control Pandoras new Modes feature for customizing the music you hear on your Pandora stations.

The idea is to give users more control over how Pandoras customization algorithms work, without requiring users build out their own playlists to get the same experience.

From the Now Playing screen, you just click on one of the various options to tune your station, as you currently do on mobile.

These are the same set of controls that are available from the web, and are detailed in one of the apps menus.

But many people today prefer a native desktop app to a web browser experience especially for features like the notifications, keyboard controls and because you dont have to dig around through a bunch of browser tabs to find Pandora as you work on other things in your browser.

It offers a much different experience, with the latter also including a music library and download store, but a more limited radio experience that lacks the tuning offered by Modes.

Pandora has also been integrating with parent company SiriusXM both services include the data-powered Pandora NOW station, for example, and now Pandora Stories includes those from SiriusXM guests.

Pandora launched a Podcast Genome Project, and today even features a number of podcasts sourced from SiriusXMs talk shows.

Theyre also not showing above the Featured Playlists section in Browse, as they do on mobile.

Pandora says podcasts are currently mobile only, but didnt offer more details.).

Mac App For Pandora