At the in-house developer conference Google I/O 2022, the company presented the next major update for the automotive user interface Android Auto, which will be released this summer. The new user interface should be able to cope better with the different screen formats in the car.
“Coolwalk” UX for small and large displays
< p class="p text-width">The first thing that catches the eye is the new user interface design codenamed “Coolwalk”, which is designed to offer the best possible user experience on both large and small display areas. The new Android Auto should also work equally well on a wide variety of display formats, such as particularly wide or high displays, as explained on the Android Developers Blog.
Android Auto's new “Coolwalk” UX supports many display formats (Image: Google)
Users can expect improvements and innovations in the following areas:
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Redesigned navigation
In addition to the efforts to present Android Auto well on a wide variety of displays and models from car manufacturers, it was announced at Google I/O that Google's own apps with an adaptive layout should also be made ready for use for displays of all types and sizes in the future. With the new navigation in Google Maps, Google presented the first app based on the new design language.
The new Android Auto navigation (Image: Google) More than 200 apps curated by Google for Android Auto are now available for download in the so-called “Car App Library” for Android or the automotive operating system Android Automotiv OS and should be even better usable with the update through multitasking.
Android Auto (Image: Google )
Android Auto (Image: Google)For example, from the summer it will be possible to operate the music playback and navigate at the same time without having to store one of the two applications in the miniature line as before. In addition, Google wants to support a browser for parked cars and the casting from the smartphone to the screen in the car.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay will look and feel different with the upcoming update once more similar and in particular the home screens of the two user interfaces are very similar.
The rollout will start in summer
Google has announced that it will start rolling out the new Android Auto in waves, as usual, in the summer, which in the case of Google can usually be classified as between June and September.
In a ten-minute video, Google presents all the new features of Android Auto in detail.