The ipod touch is a great music companion, however if you are not using some of the free music streaming apps, then you haven’t been using your ipod to its full potential. Here is a list of some of the greatest free music streaming apps that I have discovered for the ipod touch and iphone. All of these apps can be downloaded from the apple app store for free. Please note that all of the services are limited in that they only allow you a certain number of skips per custom station per hour – so use your skip options wisely.

Pandora

Pandora Internet radio is perhaps one of the best known and most developed free music streaming sites. Pandora is part of the music genome project – which is just a fancy way of saying that once you select an artist (or several), the app will create custom radio stations based off your musical tastes. All told it works pretty well but the obvious drawback is that you have to already know some artists that you like in order to begin to build some custom stations.Pandora also allows you to vote on songs, and over time it should learn your dislikes and likes and give better song recommendations.

Y! Music

This app is powered by CBS radio, and offers live streaming of hundreds of radio stations on the CBS network to your ipod. In addition to that, you can also listen to custom music stations broken down by genre if you dont want to listen to regular public radio. I am always constantly impressed with the audio quality delivered by this app, and it is well worth downloading.

Last.fm

This app is very much like Pandora’s – in that you create custom radio stations based off of artists that you like, and the app will build a selection of songs that you are likely to enjoy. Last.fm seems to have a little less variety than Pandora in my experience, but still highly recommended since it is free.

Slacker

The Slacker app offers a bunch of pre-programed stations based off of common genre, yet also includes rarer items like comedy, and international. I have found the jazz offerings on this app to be some of the best. Well worth a look.