Pandora Comes to Slowly-Expanding Google Chromecast

Google's Chromecast has finally added another app to its lineup of natively-supported services: Pandora radio. Now you can stream Pandora onto your TV using an iOS or Android device, though not through Pandora's website.

Google unveiled its reincarnation of Google TV in the form of the $35 Chromecast - a WiFi-connected, HDMI "dongle" about the size of an overgrown thumb stick drive that promised to stream (or "cast") all manner of media onto your big screen. When it first arrived in mid-summer, the Chromecast worked with YouTube and Google Play media (naturally), Chrome web browsers, and Netflix, with the promise of more apps and services to come.

Since then, the going has been slow. After selling out its first batch of Chromecasts (which, incidentally, came with 3 months of free Netflix, making the $35 device nearly pay for itself), Google was slow adding services that would work with the device.

In fact, a few months into the Chromecast's existence, Google updated its firmware, smashing the projects of small developers like Koushik Dutta - who was working on AllCast, a local media-casting app that would have enabled, for example, casting movies from users own hard drives - and locking up independent development of third party apps in general.

Still a best-selling media device (at $35, what do you really have to lose?), the Chromecast is gradually blossoming. Earlier this month, Hulu Plus support was added - which we mentioned was mostly an irrelevant addition, due to the fact that Chrome browsers can cast streaming video already.

Now, the recently embattled Pandora has joined the Chromecast app team, expanding Google's TV dongle support to a total of six apps (counting Google Play Music and Google Play Movies and TV separately) - four of which are Google apps.

Pandora also already works on TV streaming boxes like Roku, various Smart TVs, internet-connected Blu-ray players, stand-alone streaming radio players, and some next generation satellite dish and other set-top boxes.

Unlike, for example, YouTube for Chromecast, there is no "casting" option on Pandora's website. So if you want to listen to Pandora natively on your TV, you have to have an iOS or Android device. And iPads aren't supported yet, although Pandora's blog promises that support is coming soon.

One interesting technical aspect to note about Pandora's move to the Chromecast is that it takes advantage of the streaming internet radio company's recent development of a web-based app standard for their service. As we previously reported, Pandora's move to an HTML5-based web app standard allows for the company to port its internet radio to any connected device, in any context, without going through arduous custom app development for each device. For one, that means you can access Pandora through tv.pandora.com (through a slightly laborious process) on the Xbox 360 and PS3, but it also means faster app development for devices like the Chromecast.

That will come in handy as Pandora is facing increasing competition from Spotify and latecomer behemoth-in-the-making, iTunes Radio, while at the same time, the "internet of things" continues to insinuate itself into all manner of devices, including, finally, the television.