Pandora likes Palm Pre, but iPhone and others still in the cards

Online music streaming leader Pandora is indeed "putting a bid" on Palm's Pre, but the company's founder, Tim Westergen, doesn't exactly see the Pre as the only game in town. Westergren spoke with Betanews last night.

In an interview with Betanews, Tim Westergren said that while the personalized Internet radio provider is now working on software for the Pre, Pandora will also keep developing for Apple's iPhone. Other mobile platforms -- including a possible future application for Google's Android -- are still in the cards for Pandora, too.

Speaking at the AlwaysOn OnMedia conference in New York City earlier this week, Westergren noted that Pandora has been working with Palm's new Pre phone and webOS operating system, and that he believes this mobile environment will have mass market appeal.

"As a company we're always thinking, 'What's the next iPhone? And that's where we're gonna put our resources.' So we've come out and said, 'We're gonna put a bet on the Palm Pre,'" Westergren said at the conference.

Talking with Betanews later, Pandora's founder explained what Pandora likes about the Pre. "I'm not an engineer, so this is a layperson's answer. Our engineers are saying that it's easy to knock around on, and it's got a pretty high performance OS. It also has a good audio system. It's something you'd want to listen to music on," Westergren told Betanews.

But he also emphasized that Pandora by no means looks at the Pre as the only mobile platform to support.

"We have an application for iPhone, and we're working on BlackBerry, too. We've also been on about 40 Sprint and AT&T feature phones. We're [always] scanning what's out there," he said during the interview.

Android is also a possibility, according to Westergren. "If and when [a platform] reaches critical mass for our particular application, we'll do that," the Pandora founder said.