Question Navigating with Android 13

[GCMike]

I have been planning to switch from my iPhone 12 to a Google Fold, but have a question about the new Android OS (13). I had originally thought that I could use Android Auto to display apps like Google Maps on my Jeep info display, but saw posts in the forum saying that support for Android Auto was discontinued and that users should switch to Google Assistant driving mode. Since I travel a lot, often in areas that I am not familiar with, the ability to use navigation software is very important to me and if I can not use navigation apps with an Android phone I probably need to keep my current iPhone. So I have some questions.

First, is Android Auto really glitchy or broken on Android 13 on all phones? Or is it restricted to some specific hardware and some specific phones?

Second, I could not find or use Google Assistant driving mode on my Samsung Tab A7. In fact I could not even find the setup links specified in the "how to" web page (https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/10217503?hl=en) on the tablet. Is that because it is a tablet? Or is Android 13 different from the OS used in the web page? Is there newer information about using driving mode?

My car (a 2022 Jeep Wrangler) has a nice large info display and I would rather use it for navigation than the small screen on my current iPhone or even the larger screen on the Fold. Is there any way with a new Android phone to do that? The Jeep's info system is compatible with Android Auto and I can easily do that with my old Motorola G7, but I would want to use a new phone, not an old one, and only have to carry one device. The ideas that AA is no longer supported and that the current version is glitchy and stops working would be a deal killer for me, so this is important for me to know.

If Android really has discontinued support for AA then it is not something that I can depend upon, so what should I be using for in-car navigation with the Jeep's info display? It is hard for me to believe that Android would leave users high and dry for navigation tools with all of the new car's info displays.

Thank you for any help.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Since your Jeep's system supports Android Auto, you can connect the Fold or any other Android device (that isn't ancient) to the system to use Android Auto on the screen. What you're referring to is the fact that there is no longer an Android Auto interface on the phone screen -- so if you're using your phone on a car mount, without a connection to the car system, that's where Google Assistant is suggested. (Although that's generally buggy -- I find that if you just start navigating with the Google Maps app, the display will stay awake and the phone can be used fine in the car while driving.)

 

[GCMike]

Welcome to Android Central! Since your Jeep's system supports Android Auto, you can connect the Fold or any other Android device (that isn't ancient) to the system to use Android Auto on the screen. What you're referring to is the fact that there is no longer an Android Auto interface on the phone screen -- so if you're using your phone on a car mount, without a connection to the car system, that's where Google Assistant is suggested. (Although that's generally buggy -- I find that if you just start navigating with the Google Maps app, the display will stay awake and the phone can be used fine in the car while driving.)

Thank you for the reply, but perhaps I was not clear in my post or perhaps I am misunderstanding your response.

What I want to do is run a navigation app on the phone but have the display show up on my Jeep's info display. The info display is much larger than my phone display and much larger than the display on the Fold if and when I buy it, so I would rather use that than the phone display.

>

you can connect the Fold or any other Android device (that isn't ancient)

That has not been my experience. I have a Samsung Tab A7 running Android 13 and when I plug that into my info system I get a message on the tablet telling me that there are no apps on the tablet that work with my Jeep. When I plug my old Motorola G7 into the same cable Android Auto works properly.

When I try to install AA on my tablet the Google store tells me there is no such app, and some posts I have read say that AA is built into all of the Google OS version 10+, but it does not run on my tablet.

 

[B. Diddy]

Are you talking about a navigation app that's different than Google Maps? I'm not sure how easy that is to do with Android Auto.

Ever since Google discontinued the standalone Android Auto app, things have been more confusing on the compatibility front. The standalone app was primarily to allow the Android Auto interface to appear on the device itself, but since that's no longer possible, the standalone app is no longer available. Instead, the Android Auto functionality is baked into the system, and will show up (if available) when connecting directly to a compatible car system.

Tablets typically aren't compatible with Android Auto via direct USB connection -- I think it has to be a phone. So the Fold should be fine.

 

[GCMike]

Are you talking about a navigation app that's different than Google Maps? I'm not sure how easy that is to do with Android Auto.

When I used AA with my old Motorola G7 many of my apps worked, including several navigation apps other than Google Maps. In particular my TomTom navigation app, which is my principal navigation app, worked perfectly. I don't know about now.

Instead, the Android Auto functionality is baked into the system, and will show up (if available) when connecting directly to a compatible car system.

So perhaps all of the stuff I saw about AA support being discontinued referred to the standalone AA app, not the AA built into the new Android OS. I have also seen a number of postings about relatively new phones with Android 13 updates no longer having a working version of AA, but I don't know if they are referring to the AA standalone app or the AA functionality built into the Android OS. It was those postings that were concerning me because I believed them to be about the AA built into the Android 13 version of the OS. Perhaps I was wrong about that.

What I would like to know Is if anyone who is using Android 13 has any problems getting their navigation apps to work properly and display on their car's info display. That is basically what I meant to ask with my original post.

 

[tracicollins]

I am using Android 14 on my Samsung Z-Fold 5 and Android Auto is baked into the operating system. Go to settings and search for Android Auto. The first time you use it you will need to connect here on the settings page. After you have done it once it automagically connects in the future.