Toyota Dropping Pandora From Dash Display

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John Goreham from Torque News got his hands on a letter that Toyota sent to automobile owners explaining that on November 13 a system update will wipe Pandora, Facebook and OpenTable right off the Toyota Entune system.

Entune is Toyota’s dashboard infotainment system. What this means is the app will no longer have a place on the Toyota dashboard. Drivers can obviously still listen to Pandora via USB interface or Bluetooth. The reason Pandora is being dropped has nothing to do with the popularity of the app. The app. is no longer being supported by third-party app providers, according to the letter Toyota sent out.

31 COMMENTS

  1. Pandora got terrible anyway they had so many commercials wasn’t worth listening to I got rid of it long before Toyota did..now I gave iHeartRadio a try again and it was pretty good but now for some reason it’s not working on the Toyota entune again so we’ll see what happens there…

    • whats really the point of IheartRadio when you have the regular radio and they are both live and play the same songs at the same time??? LMFAOO

  2. Someone should update this story now that SiriusXM is buying Pandora. Sirius has a (paid) dashboard deal with Toyota, so it’ll be interesting to see if they do dashboard with Pandora as well.

    • thats awesome!! im actually going to call them right now and ask because i got something in the mail and they are offering me $60 for the whole year if i activate it again! This upset me because i bought the car because of those features and then they disappear!!

  3. Pandora is a poor measuring stick. It has the same inherent problem radio does… it, like radio, arrogantly assumes it knows what the listener wants to hear. It’s radio just with a different distribution method.For most millennials and music enthusiasts. Curated and open list Spotify type services are where it’s at. Listeners can craft their own playlists to meet their exact tastes. Or can switch over to curated lists to explore. And they can find those lists that are curated by people like themselves…. not some guy who has a spreadsheet of “safe” titles he is spreading over multiple homogenized formats.

  4. Toyota is taking a step backwards in safety for Pandora lovers. Entune allowed users to use Pandora and change music hands free. Now, the user will need to control the phone to change Pandora music. With new hands free laws being rolled out, this is a major step backwards.

  5. The decision here is going to be made by the consumer-eventually as they get the choice to plug in what they want into their “infotainment” system. With the thousands of apps out there the best ones will rise to the top…it all boils down to content as always. I’m a Toyota owner and would rather punch around on the AM/FM band. I let the Satellite trial expire-but that’s just me. I can stream off the phone if I want, but the “pureplays” are just that. I like the feeling of being connected to one of the most interesting places in the country -and without local radio I don’t feel connected. That’s just me. You’ve got the technology to work as much as you want to put together your own playlist-or let whichever medium you choose do it. Losing Pandora from Toyota will cause no one (but the Pandora execs) to flinch.

  6. roy radio…need to move into the 21st century. check out current research of media consumption of millennials. your name does a disservice to the industry.

  7. Has anyone ever given any thought to DRIVER SAFETY and the distractions caused by all that crap on the dashboard? New Jersey had a law in its motor vehicle code prohibiting the installation of a television screen where the driver can see it. To my knowledge, that law is still in effect. Similar laws probably exist in other states. Why should a computer screen be any different? Would you prefer that a driver on a busy city street or an interstate highway keep his or her eyes on the road…or to take them off the road to “friend” someone on Facebook? Don’t like the local radio stations? Play a CD or subscribe to satellite radio, where you could assign stations to pushbuttons, just as in traditional radio.
    Perhaps it’s time for laws like the one in New Jersey to be amended to include computer screens. Want to use Facebook or similar things? Do it on your home computer.

      • NO taking Pandora away means more distracted drivers. Now instead of using voice command or a quick look at the dash users will be digging out their phones and operating Pandora from there. That’s way more of a distraction. Toyota is screwing customers again. This was a feature that I wanted and was one of the reasons I purchased my truck. It is as if Toyota sold me a truck then decided to take away cruise control, or heated seats, etc. I for one think it stinks. PLEASE TOYOTA owners call 1-800-331-4331 and file a complaint. Ask for an official case number. I let Toyota know I will be thinking about this when I purchase another vehicle.

        • Hi I called today…
          I am going to return my lease. This is my 4th lease Camry SE.
          Toyota knew before I signed the lease, they sold me a product that they knew wouldn’t be available in mid Nov 2018.

          My best friends daughter was killed texting. I DO NOT USE MY PHONE WHILE I DRIVE. NOT HAVING HANDS FREE OPTION ON THE DASH SCREEN IS UNEXCEPTABLE. SHAME ON YOU TOYOTA HOSELTON OF ROCHESTER NY OF LEADING ME DOWN THE ROAD OF DECEPTION! SHAME ON YOU !

          I PLAN TO RUN MY LEASE OF 15 DAYS! THIS WAS MY 4TH LEASE WITH TOYOTA…. I WILL UPDATE WITH THE OUTCOME OF TURNING MY LEASE IN AT 15 DAYS OF DRVING THINKING PANDORA WAS NOT AN ISSUE!

    • A good number of people are texting, talking (hands-free or not), punching up their playlist or being more distracted than ever. There’s a bigger issue than Pandora here. Maybe insurance companies are behind this so they can do what radio can’t . . raise the rates.

    • any app not being supported by the third party application providers is being dropped. they are preparing for CarPlay. this drop is including the largest and most popular app in the world, Facebook. this has nothing to do with Pandora. Typical Radio, desperate and starting a smear campaign to skew the facts. keep telling that 93% Reach story, Radio. it’s working for you. Entercom (-8%), iHeart (-3.5%) and CMLS… same station sales DOWN YoY for all of them. and this won’t stop people from streaming music in their car. i am sure plenty of people were already listening to Spotify even though it was not on “the dash” (which, unless it’s CarPlay gets outdated quickly).

      • and Entune has a 1.4 rating in the app store. it sucks and will go away completely once CarPlay is incorporated into all Toyota models.

      • “keep telling that 93% Reach story”

        Not a skewed fact. It’s documented. If you have any that prove otherwise, show em. How profitable are the streaming platforms? Has any of them made a profit yet?

  8. Great, as I travel about the great United States ( which I seem to do quite often lately ) and the radio station I’m listening to fades out, forcing me to select yet another, only to find that the strongest signal is in the beginning of 7-10 commercials (including Home Depot and Geico) and then finally into a song, only to find that it’s some rap or hip hop song leading me to find a station I may like and start the process over again. I truly see the need for a Pandora or Sirius-XM signal in my car. Yeah, I’m led, now get off my lawn.

  9. Makes sense. Pandora is a specific brand of internet radio, competing against multiple other brands such as Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music, etc. Why should Pandora have an advantage? Sirius is paying for their specific branding spot. Internet radio is covered by having a USB connection or Bluetooth, and Toyota offers both.

  10. EverEddie must be in the internet radio game. Radio is as strong as it’s ever been. The dash’s abilities will never displace radio as the most listened to form of entertainment. You’re living in the box if you think otherwise. Peoples favorite icecream remains chocolate and vanilla because they know what they’re going to get and they like it.

    • Sorry Edward but you are living in a cave. Radio is losing the millennials because they have zero tolerance for super-long commercial breaks. And most major station groups stubbornly refuse to change that, and run less commercials. …Plus, have you gone into a Best Buy or major electronics store recently?- They don’t even sell stand-alone radios anymore! Just a handful of clock radios. …THAT is scary.

      • Pandora and other free internet services are also commercially sponsored, often with equally annoying ads that are not blockable. If you want commercial-free internet radio, you must pay a monthly fee. BTW millennials are not less tolerant about commercials than any other age group. In fact I find boomers as the group that complains the most.

        • There is no streaming service that runs the incesssntly-long breaks of radio stations. Not one! Sure, try may run 3 or 4 commercials at the most in a break, but not the 10 or 12 or more commercials in a row… 10 minute commercial breaks…that is the behavior of many FM stations now. So you are comparing apples to oranges.

          • No one does a 10 minute commercial break unless it’s the only break in an hour. The breaks on radio are not any longer than what you get on TV, and if you have cable or satellite, you’re paying to watch those commercials. But if commercials are really the problem, there are lots of non-commercial stations on FM.

      • millennial are intolerant of everything including meat, free speech, second amendment, america, gluten, and manly stuff. I wonder if they cry in their cars thinking about the government and the federal minimum wage.

    • Wake up and smell the coffee. Radio is just a box of records. Way less records in that box than Pandora and they play over, and over, and over………

      • That is up to station management and the music programmer. Some of us have the freedom to listen to what the audience is saying and experiment with the format enough to give the listener a variety and an experience that Pandora simply can’t provide.

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