Zing and Pandora together on a new device?

Looking suspiciously like a certain memory-maker's own WiFi-enabled device just recently launched, it would seem last night Zing and Pandora announced a partnership to bring a new WiFi-enabled media device to bare. (This, of course, in addition to their Sprint and Sonos deals.) A little early to tell anything much about this thing as of yet, but we presume it will go up against that Connect and the forthcoming Slacker in the exciting new realm of internet-radio-enabled portables.

[Rick Lyon @ May 23rd 2007 11:49AM]

Hideous UI. Who can read white text on yellow embossed buttons at that size with the sun behind them? haha

[A Gupta @ May 23rd 2007 1:13PM]

Nummy. Just a few weeks ago I was thinking "Wouldn't it be cool if I could get Pandora on the go?" Heh. Fruition is sweet indeed. Now for pricing info...

[AG @ May 23rd 2007 2:25PM]

I'm not sure how much anyone would want this. Pandora is a sales machine to introduce you to new music, so that you can then go out and buy it from all the registered sales points. It requires management, and for every song it plays you like it plays three you really don't and two that have nothing to do with the station genre it's on. Worst of all it only allows so much skipping, so after a point you can't even fast forward past unwanted songs and end up simply turning it off. The incorporation of this kind of sales device is what's killing internet radio. If this is the future of InRad, I'll be dancing on its grave.

[AG @ May 23rd 2007 2:30PM]

PS. Paying for advertisements is ridiculous.

[Steve @ May 23rd 2007 2:35PM]

I think that the UI in the pictures is just a demonstration of the system. It's just screenshots of the web interface (which itself has recently been overhauled).

AG -- I would imagine that there'll probably be some type of charge for the service, so the limited skip wouldn't be an issue. The pandora blog mentions $3/month for the service on Sonos, for example.