Pandora hates Windows Mobile – Pandora speaks out
We have complained about the Windows Mobile platform being neglected by Pandora on this blog, and rather atypically received a response in our comments from Tom Conrad, the CIO of Pandora explaining that they do not, in fact, hate Windows Mobile.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:17 am
We hear you on the Windows Mobile front. Our goal is to bring Pandora to as many phones as possible — in fact we support almost 50 different phones right now. We love Windows Mobile every bit as much as that “other phone.” As you know the Windows Mobile world is much richer than the iPhone — tens of different handsets with different keyboards, screens, input types (some touch, some not), etc. That means it’s not nearly as simple as creating a single application that will satisfy a large audience. That said, we’re hard at work on it and hope to have some news on the windows front later this year.
Tom
CTO @ Pandora
Some readers may be buoyed by the news, believing that the Windows Mobile version of the very successful Pandora client may be just around the corner. These readers may be cautioned by this post, from May 2007:
Posted by: Tom Conrad at May 25, 2007 06:19 PM
@pete — We’re working on a Windows Mobile version so stay tuned on that front.
Tom
CTO @ Pandora
In fact regular readers of this forum may find his excuses for not having a Windows Mobile client out more than a year later rather disingenuous. As a poster commented:
Tom Conrad, have you ever developed an application for Windows Mobile? I’m a software developer and have worked on Windows Mobile, iPhone and even BlackBerry and I find Windows Mobile the easiest platform to develop on.
Windows Mobile handles any issue with the keyboard (so there’s nothing you need to do there unless you end up using a separate third party component which can break things), horizontal, vertical, and screen size don’t matter as well just as long as you setup the drawing event to correctly re-size items.
I’ve seen the Pandora iPhone application and to be perfectly honest, I would be embarrassed if I couldn’t get it working properly on Windows Mobile by now.
Please, open up the Pandora API so many of us Open-Source developers can have a working solution comperable to the iPhone app in a week.
In fact, despite developing a Pandora client for 50 different phones with different OS’s, different screen sizes, keyboards and quirks, developing for any open platform seems to scare Mr Conrad. Here is what he has to say about Android.
“I need Android like I need a hole in the head. The last thing I need from a technology standpoint is a platform that sits on top of buggy firmware, with hundreds of phone manufacturers and different screens.”
And despite professing equal love for the WM platform as the iPhone, Tom clearly holds the iPhone in particular high esteem.
Tom Conrad, CTO of music service Pandora, said that the iPhone is fundamentally better for streaming devices and as a multifunction device appeals to consumers in different ways than other phones.
In short, the message is clear. Do not expect a Windows Mobile client any time soon, and move on to a service that meets your needs – Last.FM
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Last.fm is better than Pandora anyway. I’ve never understood the fascination with Pandora. The social aspect and recommendations based on other users interactions on Last.fm are just as good (actually much better) than Pandora’s supposedly algorithmic approach. I honestly think the main reason people are fascinated with Pandora is because it looks Mac-ish. It can be useful for music discovery. But no more so than Last.fm (or even older services like Launchcast – a service that was truly ahead of its time.)
[Reply]
Well, certainly guilty as charged.
Without question I’ve learned a lesson about commenting on unreleased products… truth is it was almost two years ago when I shared on our blog that we were working on a Windows Mobile build of Pandora. At the time I really believed it was less than 90 days away from release. I guess it’s never a good idea to talk about products that you haven’t yet released.
The full story here is that back almost two years ago we started building a Windows Mobile build of Pandora for the original Blackjack. At the same time working on establishing direct relationships with the carriers. About the time we got the Windows Mobile client into an alpha state, our deals with Sprint (and then later AT&T) came through. With those deals in place we started shifting our mobile development priorities to sync up with what the carriers wanted us to do — without exception that was to so-called “feature phones” and not smart phones. Pandora is still a small startup, so we had to shift our mobile team away from Windows Mobile and onto getting Pandora up and running on the J2ME feature phones. It was almost 18 months before the carriers began to show any interest at all in us adding Windows Mobile versions to the mix. We’ve been actively developing a full Windows Mobile version for the last couple of months.
When the iPhone SDK became available we — fairly i think — saw an opening to ride the iPhone 3G / App Store launch wave and in the process help people understand that Pandora is available in a mobile form as well. Certainly that bet has paid off… but I understand how frustrating it must be that we’ve not yet finished what we started on the Windows Mobile front.
The good news is that we do have a team working on Windows Mobile versions of Pandora. Given my track record it’s probably best not to comment on the “when” but it’s certainly not a question of “if”.
At least for a small company like Pandora, the incredibly diverse mobile universe creates a real challenge with respect to where to place your limited resources. Without question the iPhone turned out to be a great bet for us. So far, the investment in feature phones has been a more modest success. We’re all optimistic that we’ll be able to find a iPhone-like success on Windows Mobile, but only time will tell.
As for Android, we certainly think that openness is a good thing — my (regrettable) comment quoted above was more about the challenges that often come along with mobile OS’s that run across devices from a variety of hardware manufacturers. We’ve found that firmware issues (particularly related to music playback and streaming) often make ports from one handset to the next a much trickier proposition that you’d think. Hopefully Android will avoid this trap. Wish I’d chosen my words more carefully.
I’m glad you guys are taking us to task on this topic and I’m hopeful that at least some of you will give us a chance when we (finally!) bring Pandora for Windows Mobile to market.
Best,
Tom
CTO @ Pandora
[Reply]
Red Reply:
August 11th, 2009 at 12:54 am
You're still full of it. Don't make device-specific programs, make ONE program for Windows Mobile. Quit making insanely stupid excuses. Quit trying to screw AT&T customers.
I've switched to Slacker, because at least it works in Skyfire.
[Reply]
Tom,
Thank you for your comments. I’ll certainly be waiting in eager anticipation of the WM Pandora app. Be sure to use Unattended Mode so it’ll keep playing when you hit the sleep button.
[Reply]
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I’m just wondering wtf is taking so long, Tom? I’ve written your company several times over the last 3 years and nothing. No time frame, nothing. Even the evil microsoft and even worse apple can pop apps out faster than this!
I have been a loyal pandora customer for over 3 years now and honestly, for the desktop, I cannot live without it. But…I’m tired of waiting for a mobile counterpart for my SPRINT q9c. And when android comes out, how long am I going to have to wait for pandora on that platform? Another 3 years? Just release your API already and let the at large OSS movement take care of the development! (not that hard to figure out)
[Reply]
We’ve finally done it:
http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/archives/2008/12/pandora_on_wind.html
Still embarrassed about how long the entire thing took and how I handled it in the interim. Thanks for your patience…
Tom
[Reply]
admin Reply:
December 18th, 2008 at 2:30 am
Its the results which count in the end. Users are however still reporting problems with the performance of the WM app vs the iPhone, specifically that it does not stream as reliably in lower signal areas, but many are just extremely happy to have the service finally available.
[Reply]
Red Reply:
September 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
This doesn't work for AT&T customers. You're still just giving us bullshit.
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How can I make the app work over wifi on windows mobile
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Does Pandora have any developers? I’ve seen companies whip out mobile apps and iPhone apps in days, not months/years. It will be a decade before Pandora pulls their head out.
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