Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
1–10 of 71 posts
Re: Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
#2That'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...
Re: Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
#3My 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.
Re: Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
#4That'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 blue…
A new head unit sounds like it would solve your problems.
Re: Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
#5Just 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.
Re: Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
#6But I need that app in order to access the light/dark mode toggle in the developer settings.
Google seems to love killing products/services.
Re: Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
#7Is 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.)?
Re: Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
#8My 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.
Re: Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
#9That'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 blue…
I think you can still do something similar with headunit reloaded. It might be a little more complex to setup, though.
Re: Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
#10That'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 blue…
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.