[HN Gopher] Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app ...
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Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of
Google Assistant
Author : williamsharris
Score : 96 points
Date : 2021-08-20 11:57 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| 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.
| vzaliva wrote:
| 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.
| fouric wrote:
| 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.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| 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.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| 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.
| dylan-m wrote:
| 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-...
| MrGilbert wrote:
| 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...
| jsight wrote:
| I think you can still do something similar with headunit
| reloaded. It might be a little more complex to setup, though.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| 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.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >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
| dmix wrote:
| 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.
| Eridrus wrote:
| Have you tried the new Assistant Driving mode?
|
| I couldn't tell from the article if it was meaningfully
| different....
| wingspar wrote:
| 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...
| joshstrange wrote:
| There are wired->wireless CarPlay adapters you /might/ be
| able to get working with this.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| I have a CPLAY2air and it has been great.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| 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"
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| A new head unit sounds like it would solve your problems.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| 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.
| radus wrote:
| 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.
| francis-io wrote:
| 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.
| karolist wrote:
| 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.
| pepelotas wrote:
| 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.
| willcipriano wrote:
| 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
| alistairSH wrote:
| 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.
| izacus wrote:
| Yes, of course it needs WiFi. Bluetooth doesn't have the
| bandwidth to carry the video stream.
| gambiting wrote:
| 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.
| tjungblut wrote:
| 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#/
| gambiting wrote:
| 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.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| 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.
| majormajor wrote:
| 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.
| pbronez wrote:
| and then there's "Android Automotive" which is installed
| directly on the car by the OEM.
|
| Honestly the branding is just terrible.
| chrisjc wrote:
| 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...
| stronglikedan wrote:
| 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.
| sc00ty wrote:
| 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.
| technothrasher wrote:
| 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.
| tw04 wrote:
| 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.
| hulitu wrote:
| Because having an interface that works is so 1985.
| ahupp wrote:
| Fwiw, it works great in my 2017 Volvo.
| jfoster wrote:
| 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?
| gangstead wrote:
| 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 .*"
| JiNCMG wrote:
| LIVE* and POWER*
| dmix wrote:
| 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...
| scld wrote:
| 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.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Google has tons of other good ideas. They just seem to suck
| at executing them. And specifically, at _evolving_ and
| supporting them.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Why do you think that is?
| Closi wrote:
| 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.
| hulitu wrote:
| Google culture seems to be : they release a bad product
| and they make it worse. Android Auto is crap. Never
| worked
| ethbr0 wrote:
| 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]).
| AlbertCory wrote:
| 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).
| odux wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| 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?
| mariushn wrote:
| 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.
| Msw242 wrote:
| 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.
| jfengel wrote:
| I had to use that toggle as well, and that struck me as
| bizarre. Why is it not on by default?
| Msw242 wrote:
| 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.
| jstx1 wrote:
| 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.)?
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| izacus wrote:
| 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.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > 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.
| namelessoracle wrote:
| 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.
| tehjoker wrote:
| 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.
| okamiueru wrote:
| https://killedbygoogle.com/
| mabbo wrote:
| 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.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Same. Poking around "driving mode" right now and it seems
| pretty awful. Will take some getting used to.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| 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.
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