You can now listen to Pandora on your Apple Watch without needing your iPhone

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

Seems there’s a lot of news today regarding Apple relaxing its usual “walled garden” approach to third-party apps. The latest? That Pandora now has a standalone Apple Watch app, so you don’t need to tether it to your iPhone anymore. That’s big news, since only Apple Music had previously been able to do this, giving Pandora a huge advantage over other music streaming services.

Spotify’s Apple Watch app, for example, is pretty much a glorified remote control for the Spotify app running on your iPhone. Now, cellular-enabled Apple Watch users can leave their other iDevices at home and listen to their favorite podcasts, songs, playlists and more from their Pandora account.

If you’re a basic Pandora user, you’ll be able to play, pause, skip, and thumbs-up your fav jams, and adjust the volume. If you’ve got a Pandora Premium account, you can search for and play specific artists and music, and both Pandora Plus and Premium users can download music to listen to offline.

Here’s how to get it

• Open the App Store on your Apple Watch
• Tap on the Search bar
• Choose between Dictation or Scribble
• Say or write Pandora and tap Done
• Tap Get to download the app
• Double-click the side button to confirm
• Follow any prompts, and sign in to your Pandora account

Enjoy streaming your music playlists while out jogging without having to carry your heavy iPhone around.

What do you think? Glad to see a standalone Pandora app on Apple Watch? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Apple’s keyboards make JoJo Rabbit’s director, Taika Waititi, want to switch back to PC
• Apple is working on a new feature in iOS that lets you unlock your car using your iPhone or Apple Watch
• Your iPhone can now be a physical security key for Google logins
• An Amazon Engineer says ‘Ring should be shut down immediately and not brought back’

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.