Last year when Apple announced CarPlay, they also announced support for third-party music apps such as iTunes Radio, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and more, but oddly enough Pandora was missing from that list. At that time Pandora stated that they were working with other OEMs but the good news is that it looks like Pandora will be finally arriving for CarPlay.
This was confirmed by Pandora’s CFO Mike Herring who spoke to Fox Business Network (via MacRumors) and stated that the service would definitely be making its way into CarPlay. Herring also confirmed that Pandora will be available on the Apple Watch. That being said Herring did not confirm when the app would be launched for CarPlay, so users will just have to remain patient until then.
As to why Pandora took a year to decide if they would bring its app and platform onto CarPlay, Herring offered an explanation and stated that the company had a “frenemy kind of relationship going on” with Apple. It was also suspected that the reason Pandora was not available for CarPlay at that time was because it was said to be similar to iTunes Radio, although with Apple rumored to relaunch their music streaming service, perhaps now would be a good time for Pandora to step in.