Do you feel Google got this right?

[Cant Miss]

Now I know Google has a lot of very smart people, but you would be hard pressed to prove that to me based on some of the rather inexplicable design decisions made for Android Auto, especially when you consider that one of its primary goals is to minimize distraction when interacting with Android.

Let's start with the voice button. I know it is in the top right corner of our phones and tablets, but that is a lousy reason to locate it in the same place on your car's display. For US drivers, it seems the most inconvenient place for it.

Moving on to how messages are handled, it feels as though Google wants your right hand off the wheel, and your eyes off the road. Consider that when a message comes in, Android Auto interrupts your audio to inform you of that. Does it read it to you, or offer to read it to you at that point? No. It expects you to touch the top of the screen, but you better do it quickly as it will be gone in a few seconds. Then you will most likely have to make several taps on the screen to have Android Auto read you the message, and return to the screen you were previously on.

And when it does read you a message, it tells you can reply by tapping the voice button (that one at the far right corner of the screen). Why doesn't it just ask you if I want to reply instead of requiring more physical interaction with the screen?

There are other distractions as well, albeit fairly minor when compared to the above. For instance, when my phone is connected solely via Bluetooth and I am listening to something, when I exit and then return to my vehicle, playback resumes. But if I'm connected to Android Auto, again I am required to interact with the screen. It is the same with navigation... turn off the car for any reason and you will have to reestablish your route again when you startup.

Now maybe it's just me, but having Android Auto for just a week or so, these seem like pretty big potholes on the road of usability, and some seemingly so obvious that I'm was surprised to experience them.

So, is it really just me? How do you feel about Android Auto's workflow? Do you find it unnecessarily distracting? Does it require more of your attention than it should?

 

[Speerdo]

I don't yet have AA, so take my reply with that big grain of salt.

I agree with the location of the voice button on the screen. Most new cars that come w/ AA will have a voice button on the steering wheel, which will make that on-screen button an afterthought, but Google should still address it for the after-market crowd.

I agree with everything you said about reading back text messages. I wonder if you experimented with commands such as "read last text" if that will get you back to that message.

My neighbor just bought a new Impreza w/ the Subaru factory infotainment system. It does what you ask regarding bluetooth, and it drives him nuts because there's no way to turn it off and on. He and I agree that we'd rather it not start playing our last song, or resuming our last trip every time we start the car. I would just hope that they give people the option to turn it on/off if they did impliment it.

My biggest question with AA is....why can't I just launch the app on my phone and get the AA interface right on my phone? Especially with phones in the 6" range. That seems a lot easier for the after-market crowd than buying a $700 head unit. If AA is really just projecting my Android phone to a second screen, and changing the interface a bit...It makes sense to offer it on the actual device if you want. The interface is more/less fantastic and easy to use, and will surely grow to become a must-have in the car. Why I need to pay for dealer options or after-market head units is beyond me. 100% of what is needed for AA is already in my phone.

 

[mikereidis]

My biggest question with AA is....why can't I just launch the app on my phone and get the AA interface right on my phone? Especially with phones in the 6" range. That seems a lot easier for the after-market crowd than buying a $700 head unit. If AA is really just projecting my Android phone to a second screen, and changing the interface a bit...It makes sense to offer it on the actual device if you want. The interface is more/less fantastic and easy to use, and will surely grow to become a must-have in the car. Why I need to pay for dealer options or after-market head units is beyond me. 100% of what is needed for AA is already in my phone.

Google very purposely made the decision not to support a standalone mode for Android Auto. (I'll eat my words though if we hear differently on Thursday or Friday at IO.)

Every time someone has asked a Google rep about this on the few public forums they inhabit, they have been met with silence, and of course no reason for the silence.

We can speculate about reasons. One "rumor" has it that Google imposes a minimum screen size for Android Auto, I heard 7" inches, but double-din are 6.2" right ?

Google does not want Android Auto to be "outlawed" anywhere, so they are very paranoid about driver distraction issues; they don't want bad press or lawsuits. Smaller screens seem more likely to distract.

Rumor has it that the next step for Android Auto is Android running in the car, with attached phones thus becoming optional. Their decisions may play into this.

I have reverse engineered the Android Auto protocol and created an app that turns an Android tablet into a minimal AA only headunit. But this requires two Android devices.

I continue to consider creating an app that creates an Android Auto standalone mode; I know a LOT of people would really like this. But I think the phone would have to be rooted, might have to run something like Xposed, and that Google would make efforts to sabotage this, including not allowing any such app on Google Play.

Google wants control and all of our data. They are locked in a "friendly-ish" battle with the auto OEMs who do not want Google destroying the profits they make from infotainment systems and related services, and they'd prefer to have the benefits of the data.

 

[Cant Miss]

I agree with everything you said about reading back text messages. I wonder if you experimented with commands such as "read last text" if that will get you back to that message.

The issue is it is not 'listening' for a response at the time it finishes reading the text message. Here is how my Moto X handles it in 'driving mode', which IMHO, is how AA should handle it.

1.) Message comes in - audio play interrupted - "You have received a new message from Joe Schmoe, do you want to hear it"

2.) If I say yes, it reads the message and than asks if I want to reply.

3.) If I say yes, it prompts me for the reply, reads it back to me and asks if this is what I want to send. Done. No touching, no looking.

AA requires two touches to accomplish this. One touch on the message banner to hear the message, and another on the voice button to reply. It's silly really.

 

[Dr Claw]

For music control.... absolutely not. Erring on the side of safety too aggressively makes for a horrible user experience. When I moved to navigation head units, I almost universally bypassed the functions locked by parking brake because of this. Voice control to search a music library simply can not beat out a driver's own decision.