Xbox One Background Music Now Supports Pandora

A new update for the Pandora Xbox One app will unlock background music support, giving users yet another option to listen to music while they play games or use other apps.

Xbox engineering lead Mike Ybarra said the update for the music-streaming service's app that introduces this functionality will be released "over the next 24 hours." His message was posted around 7 PM last night.

The Xbox One update that came out in early August unlocked background music support. However, at the start, this was only possible through apps made by other developers, not Microsoft itself or even big-name music-streaming companies. The Xbox One app for Microsoft's Groove Music service was updated earlier this month to feature background music support.

After Ybarra tweeted about the Pandora update, someone immediately asked if there would be support for Spotify sometime down the road. Ybarra did not reply.

Spotify partnered with Sony to launch PlayStation Music, which replaced Music Unlimited in 2015. PlayStation Music supports background music--and it's very popular, apparently. It is possible that the Xbox One could get a Spotify app someday, but no plans have been announced.

Like Spotify, you can listen to music for free on Pandora, though there will be ads. You can also pay a monthly fee to zap the ads and get other perks as well. Read more about Pandora at its website.

Do you use the Xbox One's background music feature? Let us know in the comments below.