Android Auto: right on your phone screen | Hacker News Reader

Android Auto: right on your phone screen

blog.google

112 pointsedmorley63 comments

> Android Auto: now available in every car

> The latest version (2.0) with the phone screen experience will be rolling out in the coming days to more than 30 countries where Android Auto is currently available.

Thanks again Google for completely ignoring millions/billions of people in your phrasing of "every[one]".

Available in Germany, France, Spain, etc. Not available in mine and many other EU countries with shared regulations. Same thing with every Google device in the Play Store that isn't Chromecast.

? Not available in my country, so I downloaded the app

Works.. :)

Typo: apk :)

Does everything really work? I've got a car with Android Auto, but I need to pay a small fee to actually enable it (because why not :/) and I'm not sure if it makes sense to pay for it if it's not officially available in my country.

Title: "...now available in every car"

Last sentence of the article: "Sign up on the Android Auto website to receive an email when the update is available for your phone."

And the sentence before that explains that Android Auto is only available in 30 countries. I don't get this kind of region/country lock-in.

Likely to avoid legal/regulatory issues...

I'd guess that's probably due to regulations around in-car hardware and user interfaces. Compliance is hell.

EU uses same car software across the board (with same synchronized regulations) and Auto still isn't available in all those countries. Apple CarPlay (as usual) is.

I always hear this same tired out argument... and then see Apple somehow managing to handle it while Google region locks even their free apps like Google+ or podcast feature in Google Play Music.

Maybe Apple dedicates more lawyers to figuring out regulation and compliance. And lawyer time is far, far more expensive than engineering time.

...which, if that is the case, is something Google could certainly afford, but choose not to.

More like Apple don't give a flying damn until poked about it.

Just watch how they ignored the mandatory 2 year warranty on computers in italy, while pushing Applecare.

Frankly when it comes to Apple they basically behave as if the whole world is like USA until told otherwise.

Happens to non-car updates as well I think.

"In every car" but not necessarily "in every phone" :)

And yet I still can't use a cheap Android tablet as a head unit because Google won't open their protocols to anyone outside their partner network. I either have to use my phone with a tiny screen, get an Android 5.0 compatible tablet with a SIM card (and corresponding data plan), or pony up a stupid amount of money for a "compatible" head unit.

Check DX or alidirect you'll be surprised just how many cheap android 5+ w/ GSM tablets are out there.

I already bought one. Trouble is now I have to pay an additional $20 a month for the data plan unless I turn on internet sharing from my phone every time I hop in the car.

No option to use other softwares? I don't want Google Maps for directions, but (Google Owned) Waze for better traffic information, or Here for when I have poor connectivity. Bring on some competition.

Write an email to the EU Antitrust Committee ;)

Was hoping for OBD-II compatibility. AutoMate with Torque provide a wonderful little dashboard for engine information.

While it is nice to be able to use your phone directly, still much better to make your phone talk to an in-dash display and for that you need a compatible in-dash system.

The good news is that there's plenty of aftermarket in-dash displays.

The bad news is that you have to muck around their awful websites for too long to filter out all the junk and then pay for something that has way more than you need. For whatever reason "android-auto" capability is always a premium option that automatically includes a long list of frilly bauble features.

I'm almost certain Google (and Apple) is charging hardware manufacturers a large amount of money for access to the SDK to make a unit Android Auto compatible.

> The good news is that there's plenty of aftermarket in-dash displays.

Only if your existing display is in DIN format, which is extraordinarily rare these days. Of course you could rip the whole thing out, but then you'd have to do something about basic car and AC controls.

There are many in-dash displays available that don't require DIN. Pioneer and Kenwood are well known but there's also a bunch of Chinese manufacturer's like www.seicane.com .

Basically any popular make/model in the last 8-10 years can be accommodated. It is a little more involved than DIN installation in that you have to remove panels, but its not so bad. The openings for the AC controls are part of the panel that you install. It all snaps together.

True, but today many cars have A/C and car feature controls integrated with the entertainment system, so unless the aftermarket system can replace that somehow, replacing the factory system will be troublesome.

Well this sounds like MirrorLink will be good enough as AA can now run on the phone rather than needing to be on the head unit too.

This sounds useful. Is it just an app that takes over the full screen?

Yes. Basically, running Android Auto on the phone itself, instead of pushing the app to an external display in the dashboard.

Which is the direction this stuff should be going: dash display is a simple mirror or GUI client of the app on the phone/device.

For those interested, Windows Mobile has had this since 8.1 :)

FWIW, my Moto Droid did this in 2009 on Android 2.0. But Google has to make a big ordeal about reinventing the wheel to keep the news cycle focused on them.

The big deal is that this is potentially available to everyone(who has a compatible phone) and not just a feature available from a specific manufacturer.

Why not advertise it if it's Google wants people to know now exist and want them to use?

Available to everyone? Not manufacturer specific? Like... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

Google just announced they reinvented the wheel again.

Seems like they killed this off. I forgot it existed

Sure, but as you can see, at least five years ago, they had an app that was basically Android Auto running on your phone, and now they have it again, with more distracting colors and animations.

They seem to have confused "every car" with "any car"

> Whether your phone is connected to a compatible car display, or placed in a car mount on the dashboard, Android Auto brings your favorite apps and services into one place, making them accessible in safer and seamless ways.

This announcement really boils down to "you can have have your phone... in your car. Pretty amazing right?"

Dunno, does "available" connote "present"?

It does, but "available" also implies two terms. By itself, we don't know if it's every available car, or every car available within the app.

Was planning to buy an Android Auto-based head unit next month. Guess I'll give this a try first! The one other thing I need is integration with a backup camera...

Can you suggest a good replacement head unit?

I have a double din mount and was looking at the Pioneer AVH-4200NEX. Apparently some time in the next month or two the Sony XAV-AX100 should be released, which is also appealing.

Is either one worth the $500+ price tag? Still not sure.

I see some other commenters also remember 'Car Home', released in Android 2.0 way back in 2009 to very little fanfare, and eventually killed off: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/building-android-a-40...

This really sucks for AutoMate. They've been offering exactly this for years now.

Never nice to have a bigger company eat your lunch, but it was always going to be a victim of it's own success plugging that hole.

Hope they can keep going, but it looks like the writings on the wall here.

Hopefully Google will acquire AutoMate and use the team to work on this as well (while adding more features) like OBD II support, backup camera support, 3rd party apps etc.

Or hopefully, independent companies will continue to do faster, better work independently from the Google monopoly, and their apps will be available in more countries than Google supports properly.

> This really sucks for AutoMate.

Why ? This app can't launch anything except couple Google apps. While this might be godtier in the Google bubble, many of users would also like to use other navigation/media apps with it.

Awesome. So now basically any stereo where the phone can take over the screen is good, or any given phone mount and bluetooth stereo.

Thus ends my year-long search for a single-DIN android auto head unit!

Can't set a shortcut for own apps ? Laughable. Seems more of a launcher for 3 Google apps + added value of Trojan horse for data collection while driving.

I wished for Android Auto to get released in this form, but this isn't something I thought a multi billion corporation with talented software engineers would come up with.

Here's some real usage info:

Gavin • 4 hours ago I just finished driving to work with this (I navigate to work every day for the traffic information). Having not read the article (just the headline) before heading out, I was somewhat shocked that it didn't respond to "OK Google" commands.

I also found the message overlay extremely annoying. My wife sent me a text message, and instead of the topside "heads-up" notification normally containing the message body, I got a gigantic "NEW MESSAGE" popup that covered my navigation (so if you were about to make a turn in an unfamiliar location, you might miss it). And it didn't even contain the message body - so instead of just reading the message hands-free, I had to tap the screen to "play" the message. And even that didn't actually work. [1]

There are couple car apps way more powerful then that, like Automate[2], Car Dashdroid[3], Drivemode[4].

[1] http://disq.us/p/1dfwfl6

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitspice.a...

[3] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nezdroid.c...

[4] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.drivemode....

I just installed Android Auto and it's pretty nice. Perhaps you should try it. Having shortcuts to the other apps would, however, be a joke.

I paid for offline GPS software which lets me download whole continents of data to my phone. Paying roaming charges to be able to navigate is a joke in my book.

No, you can't save the whole country in Maps. You can't even save certain regions in certain countries (Austria being an example).

Just Bluetooth connection? I connect my phone to my car radio using an USB cable and the Android Open Accessory Protocol (AOAP). It charges and gives me better sound. Won't it be supported?

The app itself doesn't need Bluetooth.

From what I understood, Bluetooth is necessary only to have the app automatically launch when connecting to whatever Bluetooth device/infosystem unit you have in your car.

Sure, but it would be nice to automatically start when I plug my phone to my car.

Do you have an idea how to "sense" the connection ? The app Trigger might help you writing a scenario to launch the Android Auto app on a certain trigger.

If you have an Android Auto compatible head unit, it'll stream display, audio and other data over USB.

This is a fallback for units that don't support the protocol.

I am eager to get the Waze for Android Auto. Google Maps navigation always takes around 15 min more than estimation in bay area at commute time.

this is more accurate headline:

"Android Auto: now available not in every car"

From the name, it sounds like it drives the car. But no.

"Android Auto" is an existing system by Google, and was announced over 2 years ago. There really shouldn't be any ambiguity regarding the name anymore.

Tangential: huh, when did .google become a TLD?

I'm too old for this sh

... about two years ago. (Though admittedly it's not used much.)

If that surprises you, it sounds like you may be equally surprised at the list of TLDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_dom...

.google, .apple, .microsoft, were all amongst the first new TLDs registered when things were opened up. You can see the full list of hundreds (thousands?) here: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/delegated-strin...

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