Songza (for iPad) Review

Songza, our Editors' Choice pick among free streaming music sites, brings its playlist-based service to Apple's tablet. The free, ad-supported iPad( at Amazon) app presents music as themed playlists that you can discover by searching for artists, rifling through genres, or using the extremely cool Music Concierge, which serves up tunes based on your mood, time of day, and popular genres. The app offers a simple and unique way to discover artists you may not have known existed, but it lacks a vital feature found in the browser-based Songza: playlist creation and editing. Songza's iPad app is a solid offering that brings an interesting feature set to the table, but it can't displace Slacker for iPad as our Editors' Choice streaming music service on Apple's slate.

The Songza Experience
You begin by either signing into Songza using your Facebook credentials or by creating/signing in with dedicated Songza credentials. This brings you to the Songza Music Concierge, which prompts you to select music based on your mood time and time of day. Songza displayed the time of day (Monday afternoon), and I selected the "Quitting Your Job" playlist because it was represented by a person ready to smash a copier with a sledgehammer—it made me chuckle. Songza then asked me to pick a genre from "Fight-the-power Funk," "Rebellious Rock," "Office Space Rap," and "Riotous Punk." After selecting "Fight-the-power Funk," I then chose "The Big Payback" playlist, which served up The Isley Brothers' "Fight the Power (Part 1 & 2)," James Brown's "The Payback," and other appropriate funky protest songs. I was very pleased with the mix that bounced to my ears.

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Tracks within playlists have the expected album art, artist, song, and album titles, but Songza also displays the playlist creator's username and the number of songs within the collection ("The Grunge Era" contains 71 songs). You can also share playlists using Facebook, Tweet, and email. Unfortunately, Songza lacks song lyrics and an option that would let users stream complete albums (it's all about the playlists). Songza also lets listeners skip a handful of songs per hour—typical for a free streaming music services—but it lacks a premium plan that would remove the visual ads and skip limitations.

A toolbar housing several categories resides to the left of the main content area. It features Popular (both trending and all-time hot songs), My PlayLists (recently played playlists and favorites), Explore (which lets you search for songs by genre, mood, culture, and more), Search, and Settings. There's also a section that displays "Similar Playlists," song collections that are similar to what you're playing. Songza's recommendations are excellent; it displayed "Origins of Swag" and "Classic Samples, Damn Good Songs" while I listened to The Big Payback playlist.

New Features
Songza features an improved artist search that displays all the curated playlists featuring the performer. Even better, when you fire up one of those playlists, the first song that's played will be from the artist you searched for, so you don't have to wait to hear your favorite musician perform.

The more intriguing feature is Songza’s HQ Audio feature, which is powered by Audyssey. The audio-enhancing software is designed to improve headphone sound quality without increasing the streaming bitrate (and, by extension, your data plan usage). Here's how it works: you plug a pair of headphones into your iPad and Audyssey will prompt you to select an associated audio profile (the software supports over 200 headphone models). Songza then installs an audio profile—an audio profile that improves the listening experience a bit. The streaming tunes that were delivered to my Skullcandy Hesh headphones sounded a bit fuller with Audyssey activated than when I used unsupported cans. If you own a pair of headphones that aren't currently supported by Audyssey, click the "Can't find your headphones?" link to fill out a request form. Audyssey may support the model in the future.

A Major Gripe
The Songza iPad app, despite carrying over many of the browser-based version's capabilities, has one glaring flaw: It doesn't let users create or edit playlists. That's one of the Web version's more attractive features—especially if you make a playlist editable by the entire Songza community, which results in intriguing mixes—so it's a disappointment not to see it here as well. Songza states that playlist creation and editing is a feature that will be a Web-exclusive feature for the foreseeable future.

Singing the Songza
Songza may lack the ability to create and edit playlists, but it's still an excellent streaming music app. Music discovery is effortless, and there are many entertaining playlists, too. Slacker for iPad remains the Editors' Choice pick as it's a more comprehensive streaming audio service that carries lifestyle content and live ESPN. But if you're looking to sample interesting mixes, give this app a spin.