Five years after Android Auto launched, Google announced the platform’s first major refresh at Google I/O earlier this year. That refresh — which brings an updated layout, app launcher, a notification tab, new typeface, and dark mode by default — is starting to arrive on Android phones across the world this week. By and large, Android Auto looks and feels a lot more like your Android phone now, with big, colorful icons that better highlight all the things you can do rather than have you go hunting for apps under various tabs.
In the old version of Android Auto, there were small icons along the bottom navigation bar that split everything into categories: navigation, calls, home screen, music, and exit. Now, everything is condensed into the app launcher button on the left, a notification bell on the right, and a Google Assistant shortcut. It’s a much more intuitive way to use Android Auto, given all your compatible apps are laid out upfront on the app launcher.
However, not all of the icons work the way you think they would. While the icons for third-party apps like Spotify and Audible launch their respective apps, hitting Google News doesn’t bring up your news immediately, per se. Instead, Google apps like Calendar and Podcasts just bring up Google Assistant, which just ends up asking you to complete the task by voice.
This technically makes sense, given Android Auto is designed to make you physically touch the screen as little as possible. But in practice, this felt super redundant. It was annoying to find that although the icons for all your Google apps were there, most just routed you back to the Google Assistant. This overkill is marked by the permanent Google Assistant button on the right side of the bottom navigation bar since you could always have activated it by voice or through your steering wheel’s voice command button.
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