Android Auto not supported on lollipop

[Android Central Question]

Hello all, I have a Samsung Android phone with the Android version 5.1.1. The phone has the Android Auto (AA) app that used to work well for connecting the phone to the car (a 2019 Honda) so that I could look at maps, control phone calls etc. on the car touchscreen.
Few months ago the app stopped working on my phone and doing some research online I have found that now AA requires a phone with Android version 6.0 or above. I can think of two options to solve the issue but wanted to check if any of you has done anything similar and has any suggestion.

Option 1) It seems i can update the version on my phone to, let say, 6.0 or above. This is not an update my phone lets me do easily. I see that the procedures for this update require to go through the developer mode and before doing it i want to make sure i am not messing up. Anybody tried that?

Option 2) There are other apps -I have taken a look at AutoMate (AM)- that mimic AA and run properly on my phone. AM works well and basically looks like AA. But the car seems to give only two options regarding the apps to connect to: AA or the Apple app for iphones. With this said it seems that AM or other apps do not get to be shown and controlled in the car touchscreen: one can use them on the phone but that defies the utility of having a nice touchscreen, steering wheel commands etc. . Anybody has found an app or a way to work around this option?

Any other Option that I am missing?

Thanks a lot!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Which Samsung phone do you have? Tell us the exact model number.

Please register on this forum, which will allow you to engage in discussion more easily, as well as post images. https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[J Dubbs]

Hello all, I have a Samsung Android phone with the Android version 5.1.1. The phone has the Android Auto (AA) app that used to work well for connecting the phone to the car (a 2019 Honda) so that I could look at maps, control phone calls etc. on the car touchscreen.
Few months ago the app stopped working on my phone and doing some research online I have found that now AA requires a phone with Android version 6.0 or above. I can think of two options to solve the issue but wanted to check if any of you has done anything similar and has any suggestion.

Option 1) It seems i can update the version on my phone to, let say, 6.0 or above. This is not an update my phone lets me do easily. I see that the procedures for this update require to go through the developer mode and before doing it i want to make sure i am not messing up. Anybody tried that?

Option 2) There are other apps -I have taken a look at AutoMate (AM)- that mimic AA and run properly on my phone. AM works well and basically looks like AA. But the car seems to give only two options regarding the apps to connect to: AA or the Apple app for iphones. With this said it seems that AM or other apps do not get to be shown and controlled in the car touchscreen: one can use them on the phone but that defies the utility of having a nice touchscreen, steering wheel commands etc. . Anybody has found an app or a way to work around this option?

Any other Option that I am missing?

Thanks a lot!

Another tip is to turn off auto updates in the Google play store. When you have an older android version the auto updates will eventually stop your apps from working, by updating to a newer version that's not compatible with your version of Android. If you keep the older working versions from updating they will quite often keep working almost indefinitely. Then you can go in and manually update just the things you want to. I did that with KitKat and kept it working for ages lol.

 

[Android Central Question]

Follow up on "Android Auto not supported on lollipop"

Hello,
i posted a question yesterday and got two kind answers, one asking for more details.
- The phone is a Grand Prime, model SM-G530AZ
- I have tried to disable updates for Android Auto and installed an older version. That seemed to work for, literally, few seconds, but then Android Auto was forcing for the update.
Any other suggestions? Thanks!

 

[mustang7757]

Re: Follow up on "Android Auto not supported on lollipop"

Hi, there going be lot of compatibility issues with that Android version, it's best to look for something little newer.


I'll leave a Link to register so you can communicate here as a guest account you can only post questions but can't reply

https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=409154

 

[B. Diddy]

Another tip is to turn off auto updates in the Google play store. When you have an older android version the auto updates will eventually stop your apps from working, by updating to a newer version that's not compatible with your version of Android. If you keep the older working versions from updating they will quite often keep working almost indefinitely. Then you can go in and manually update just the things you want to. I did that with KitKat and kept it working for ages lol.

That's a good idea, but I'd also note that once an app developer updates an app so that it's no longer compatible with a given Android version, the Play Store just won't update the app on the device (so it'll be stuck with the last version it can use). The key point there is not to uninstall that app, or else you won't be able to reinstall it from the Play Store (since it'll say the current version is incompatible). You might also want to extract the APK for this app version and save it for future use -- there are a number of APK extractor apps in the Play Store.

 

[B. Diddy]

Duplicate threads merged.

You can try checking the forums at XDA-Developers.com to see if there are any custom ROMs based on higher versions of Android that you can install (which would require rooting). Otherwise, I agree with mustang7757, it'd be best to get a more current phone.