How To Fix Pandora’s Poor Audio Quality on Mobile Devices

At some point I noticed that Pandora’s audio quality on my iPhone 5 became awful. I explored all the options of the App, including Settings->Advanced->Call Network Audio Quality->Higher Quality Audio. Nothing worked. I was on the wifi, so I couldn’t blame At&t.

I even signed up for trial of Pandora One… Their 192 bit audio sounded like 64…

I read through all kinds of articles and none gave the solution. Many complained that their iTunes sounded great, but Pandora sounded ugly on the smartphones. However on a desktop machine it’s fine, since desktops get at least 128 bit sound. Many blamed Apple for limiting sound for the third-party apps (I find it amusing).

Anyway, the solution is simple: delete the app and install it again. Pandora One now sounds like it should!

It seems like the last update of iOS got some third-party Audio apps’ settings stuck at some low quality audio mode, possibly to save battery life. But if you reinstall the app, it starts to run fine, since it is now ran in a fully upgraded environment. That’s just my guess, I really don’t know. Since I read that this problem is also encountered on Droids, however, it might not be the case… Maybe it’s Pandora’s last update… Don’t know, anyway, the most important thing it worked for me. =) Hope it works for you too!