Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant | Hacker News Reader

Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant

theverge.com

104 pointswilliamsharris66 comments

Just in case some people are confused: There are two different things with the same name -

- Android Auto vehicle communication technology that mirrors your phone's screen to a vehicle's head unit.

- Android Auto phone app that displays the same interface on your phone's screen like a normal app (e.g. mount your phone up high and use directly, or use some other screen mirroring technology to send it to the head unit).

Only the SECOND is being discontinued, not the first. This is still bad news for people who rely on it, but has no impact on Android Auto communications system.

The fact that the situation exists where Google has two products that do the same thing and one of them has the same name as another of their products that does something different is just bad news overall. It's great that this specific instance will be resolved soon but are Google, as an organisation, learning any broader lessons at all?

The lesson, I guess, is that if you print money from some other dominant business unit, you don't have to have any other good ideas or execution.

Google has tons of other good ideas. They just seem to suck at executing them. And specifically, at evolving and supporting them.

Why do you think that is?

I suspect it’s cultural - maybe starting new apps is seen as more desirable than making existing apps better.

And if you keep starting new apps you can’t keep iterating/updating/maintaining all the old ones too without spreading your engineering talent too thinly.

Google’s internal culture, at least from the outside, doesn’t seem to be one that often releases a bad product and iterates it into a good one - sometimes they do, but with most either it gets lots of interest/users from day 1 of general release or it’s quickly abandoned.

Google culture seems to be : they release a bad product and they make it worse. Android Auto is crap. Never worked

What seems broken at Google is the iteration process. I'll let more informed others speculate as to why.

But I would contrast it with Apple (who seem to spend much longer in the pre-release baking stage + have a more mature user feedback cycle post-release [for hardware...]) and Amazon (spray and pray + iterate like crazy + a more mature deprecation and support story) and Microsoft (developers, developers, developers [and especially enterprise developers]).

I worked there 11 1/2 years.

An engineer gets promotion from "having impact." Improving an existing app is usually not enough impact. Replacing it with some shiny new thing is. Once it's out there, you ideally transfer to something else where you can also have impact, or you quit & join an outside company.

As many people have pointed out, your own manager cannot promote you; only the Promotion Committee can (although your manager can certainly help).

In this case, these are very complementary and can even be considered the same thing. the core Android auto idea is to give a driving interface with limited features, less distractions, large legible texts etc. It is by default displayed in the car displays but there can be cars which do not support this. For those situations Google had a solution to display the same interface on the phone. This was especially useful for people to get used to this technology before upgrading their car. Google probably decided that there are enough bee cars and enough after market units with this technology that they don't have to support this anymore. I think it is too early considering there are a lot of older cars on the road and there is a acute shortage of new cars.

At least these are two similar "driving mode android app" products.

I feel like Microsoft is a worse offender at this. As soon as they get some traction with one product they start overloading the name. Think of all the unrelated products crammed together under the umbrellas: ".*365", "Visual Studio .*", "Surface .*"

LIVE* and POWER*

It basically like having a responsive website that works with both mobile/desktop web. But in this case it's mobile/auto interface. Not really two different products, just maintaining two different UIs built using the same underlying language and core system.

They probably just measured how much people with new devices are using the phone version + projected 3-4yrs into the future and saw it declining even further (it'd probably take about ~2yrs for the release to hit mainstream).

Then evaluated whether it was worth slowing down product development and new releases to support two UI versions.

It could be better for customers in the end as the number of used cars without a screen dwindles each year and they can improve the product quicker.

The other question is what Apple is doing...

and then there's "Android Automotive" which is installed directly on the car by the OEM.

Honestly the branding is just terrible.

This is what I thought it alluded to... I thought there was an "Android Automotive" phone app to support in-car "Android Automotive" system to unlock doors, remotely control AC, etc... I was thinking "oh no" looks like Android Automotive was short lived. Polestar owners are going to be pissed.

Google is just soooo bad at names and branding.

At this point in time I have no idea what the current TV platform is called (google TV, android TV, chrome TV), and to be honest I don't really care since I've lost interest in trying to follow...

I'd rather the first be discontinued, since I've never been able to get it to work properly. I've since got a gooseneck phone holder that holds my phone up over my car's AA screen, and use the second instead. Oh well, I suppose I'm not shocked by this decision.

What make/model car do you have and what doesn't work properly? I ask because I've never really encountered an issue with it other than the Waze UI suddenly disappearing.

I've used it in various cars (Ford Fusion, VW Tiguan, Audi Q5, Nissan Rogue) and it seems to have different issues with each car. On one the screen locks up, on another the volume doesn't work right, on a third the voice commands don't always work. I'm sure it's a nightmare for Google trying to make it work right with all the different automotive head units out there.

I honestly wonder if it's just your phone. I've been in 3 of the 4 you listed with a Pixel 1 and 3. With the fusion + Pixel 1 I did have one freeze in the very first version that supported AA, but no issues after the next patch.

Because having an interface that works is so 1985.

Fwiw, it works great in my 2017 Volvo.

From the link in the article to https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/7/18535644/google-assistant-... , this "Google Assistant driving mode" looks like yet another "ML"-style the-product-manager-thinks-the-computer-should-tell-the-user-what-to-see experience instead of one that just shows the user stuff they ask for. Maybe that's just the homescreen and the actual UX for using it isn't that bad, but it's not promising so far.

I still do not understand that Google announcement.

I use Google Auto on my car display. It starts when I connect the phone with a USB cable.

At the same time, I see on the phone that an app as started. Isn't this Google Auto? In other words, could I uninstall today the Google Auto app and still project on my car display?

I'd love to be able to do that. And be able to start Maps and search, instead of saying Maps can't run while Android Auto runs.

That's... well. Sometimes, timing is bad. I own a 2010 Mazda 6, which comes with bluetooth, but has no display whatsoever. I installed a custom head unit with Apple Car Play. Unfortunately, this head unit became unresponsive every once in a while, and only restarting the car would help. That annoyed the hell out of me.

So I went back to the stock experience (it's BOSE after all), and tried to playback audio over bluetooth. For whatever reasons, bluetooth will start skipping parts of the track, or will playback with a faster speed after a while. Maybe, 2010-ish bluetooth is not that great.

So I went back to using the aux input. That works, but of course, you cannot use the controls on the wheel.

Unfortunately, Apple doesn't allow CarPlay to run on your device, so I bought a cheap Android phone three weeks ago, a phone holder for the dashboard, and installed everything into the car. After rooting the device, Tasker would start Android Auto when the car got powered on. To prevent my car from burning down, the phone gets removed from the dash and stored in the glove box after I finished my ride (so that the battery wouldn't sit in direct sunlight).

After reading the announcement, I switched to "Auto Mate". Looks decent, but it's not quite the same.

Maybe I need a new car after all...

A new head unit sounds like it would solve your problems.

Somehow. But I'm afraid throwing another pile of paper at some of the manufactures (it was a Kenwood unit I had at first) will result in a similar unstable experience.

For that, it's too expensive and too much work, as you need to take apart the whole middle part of the interior. Also, a lot of the deeply integrated parts of the audio system will be lost, and also the hands-free communication parts that are in the car.

I’ve down light research into this and I think it’s possible to maintain all that integration. Might be preferable to have a professional installer do it though.

I think you can still do something similar with headunit reloaded. It might be a little more complex to setup, though.

I own a Toyota Corolla from 2017, and even though the system has a head unit with a display, it's not exactly great feature-wise. I'm not sure I want to tamper with the stock head-unit (as some features like setting when the headlights of the car shuts off, etc), and I'm not done making payments on it. Not exactly keen on changing car either, as everything else works great.

First world problem I suppose.

It usually takes some time for changes like this to filter down to actual mainstream devices. Unless you’re using a Pixel or something I wouldn’t worry about it for a while. And even then your device has to be using the latest OS at the future date.

Have you tried the new Assistant Driving mode?

I couldn't tell from the article if it was meaningfully different....

I haven't ordered it yet, but found this 'portable' CarPlay device interesting. I uses wired CarPlay, but I'm ok with that. https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/26/review-car-and-dr...

There are wired->wireless CarPlay adapters you /might/ be able to get working with this.

I have a CPLAY2air and it has been great.

That was also on my list, but at the time I was searching for it, I was only able to buy it in Asia. Seemed as if all stock in Europe somehow ”disappeared“

>bluetooth will start skipping parts of the track, or will playback with a faster speed after a while

Sorry for laughing, but this is tech comedy gold :D

Figured this was coming once I saw they were duplicating features from Android Auto in Google Maps.

Only thing I really hate about this change is that Maps' driving mode doesn't currently let you do anything until you enter a destination. So until I tell Maps where I'm going I can't even play music over Bluetooth.

Android Auto also starts automatically when I turn on my car, whereas Google Maps doesn't, but I suppose I could fix that pretty easily with a Tasker task.

This is the big problem. It wouldn't be bad if they replaced products with products that are already fully baked; but the fact that start automatically when connected to Bluetooth isn't already there, that the music apps don't show playlists in Driving Assistant but do in Android Auto, and that there is no touchscreen UI for selecting a music app makes this needlessly frustrating.

It happens every time. YouTube Music didn't have critical functionality fron Google Play Music when the latter's deprecation was annoyed, and Google Chat is still missing functionality from Google Hangouts.

This is a very bad news for motorcyclists. I am using Android Auto on by Pixel mounted on my bike handlebars. The reason is that it has bigger buttons and easier to operate wearing gloves.

I have a shortcut on my home screen to bump the font size to extra-large (using Bixby Routines). I also set my home screen grid to be 3x5 instead of 5x8 so that the app icons are bigger (I use the Nova launcher).

It works great. I don't make a habit of using my phone while driving, but sometimes I just want to select a podcast or read an SMS (not reply), and this lets me do that safely.

Is Google's rate of shutting down products really high or is this some cognitive bias (more headlines, more prominent products, higher number of products in the first place etc.)?

It isn't high directly. However they do tend to shut down a lot of things that others have bought into fully and such people have reason to get mad about it. Often it isn't really feasible to switch away from their products - in this case because your car is directly tied to it.

If Google wants to play in the automotive space they need to have 20 years between announced shutdown and discontinuation, with 5 of those years being for automakers to transition, then the next 15 of support for people who have cars. Move fast and break things doesn't fly in the safety matters world of cars.

They're on the high side, but they are still not as hard as most SV startups.

They do have a horrible habit of rewriting and rebranding products instead of iteratively fixing them. This Auto example is one of them. There's no reason why this transition couldn't be seamless under Auto name - but they instead decided to bleed internal politics into public product strategy.

> They're on the high side, but they are still not as hard as most SV startups.

Google isn't an SV startup. It's the fourth largest company in the world (and one of the three bigger is Saudi Arabia's oil field). It should therefore be judged against other behemoths. And to support products for a reasonable amount of time.

I can still get parts for a 45 year old Toyota directly from the company.

Hasn't it been noted that the way you get promoted at Google is participating in launching new products and that they dont really reward good maintenance of existing products?

If so it's just everyone working the incentives.

If so, then the incentives are doing what they are designed to do and Google just doesn't maintain products. When executives design incentives, usually it's kind of obvious what most of the effects and side-effects will be. If something "bad" starts happening, they tweak the system. If it's left in place, it's working as designed.

https://killedbygoogle.com/

I drive a ten year old car with no built in Android auto interface. Having Android auto in my phone has been a big deal for me.

This sucks.

My car's AA implementation is horrible, so I use the implementation that's being discontinued. The worst part is it's too new to replace the head unit with one of those fancy wireless AA units out there, since my car has an integrated infotainment system. This does, indeed, suck.

Same. Poking around "driving mode" right now and it seems pretty awful. Will take some getting used to.

This is the third time in the past few months that avoiding updates to Google apps on my Android phone has saved or would save me grief (with the first two times being an update to the dialer that would have broke my voicemail, and an update to another product that would have required that I agree to hand over more of my data), and with every incident, I just feel more vindicated.

My expirence with Android Auto in my Skoda Fabia 2019 is patchy already. The connection stopped working in the past year for a few months, now it only connects to my in car screen partly, and spotify wont load.

I love the idea of keeping in-car entertainment on my mobile, so I can get updates. In practice, my car will get left behind eventually and I'll be stuck with a dumb screen in my dashboard.

Does your car support wireless Android Auto? If not, try switching to a different cable. The push to wireless is because people are having all sorts of problems with patchy cables and then blame it on Android/phone/Google. Too bad only very recent cars support it. Mine does, it works great.

In case it doesn't, I can really recommend AAWireless [1]. I have it in my 2021 Zoe because the cable was quite awkward with my phone and it's super annoying to always plug it in.

[1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/aawireless#/

I can confirm AAWireless works fine - got it for my 2020 Volvo XC60 and it works without any issues. The only problem is that due to chip shortages their waitlist for one is very long currently.

100% on the cable. I had 10 or so laying around that all didn't work but I could hook up to my PC just fine. Thought it was my old phone at the time. I bought this one and problem solved: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G12WYCG

Does wireless Android Auto require a wifi unit inside the HU (wireless Apple CarPlay does)? This seems to be one of the main blockers to adoption by OEMs. AFAIK, in the US, only BMW has implemented wireless CarPlay/AndroidAuto across most of it's lineup.

Edit - also, 100% agree on the cable. From my experience, if a cable is at all worn, it stops working in the car, even if it works just fine for charging or data transfer in the home.

Yes, of course it needs WiFi. Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth to carry the video stream.

Well, you say "of course" - I'm not sure how that's so obvious. Bluetooth can easily do 1mbps, and that's enough to send some encoded video, which AA does anyway, even with a cable connection the display gets really fully of artifacts and choppy sometimes, whatever compression they are using struggles. If you limited the number of updates per second I'm sure it would be fine over bluetooth alone.

Phone support is a bigger problem from my experience. Exact same setup in my car works flawlessly with some phone models and has any number of issues with others.

At some point Google is going to add a Google Assistant Apps Store and a Google Assistant Dialer, and before we know it they'll release a phone with Google Assistant OS and we'll be back to square one.

Seriously, this thing is getting incredibly bloated, even by Google's standards. It's a dumping ground for every half-baked duplicative idea Google has had for the past few years, it never gets cleaned up, and its settings screen[1] speaks for itself. It must be hell to work on the thing.

[1] https://9to5google.com/2020/05/21/google-assistant-settings-...

Omg thanks a lot for doing this. The first Androis Auto version was great, now they increased number of clicks and taps to get to basic features and it was ready to be hated.

But I need that app in order to access the light/dark mode toggle in the developer settings.

Google seems to love killing products/services.

I had to use that toggle as well, and that struck me as bizarre. Why is it not on by default?

I assume the PM doesnt actually use android auto, and one of the devs who does wanted to at least be able to use it personally.

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