Android Developers Blog

Posted by Eric Bahna, Product Manager In January, we enabled the Google Play Store to accept open testing submissions of navigation, parking, and charging apps. It’s great to see many of you developing Android Auto apps and sending us feedback through the issue tracker. Thank you for helping us improve the platform so we deliver better in-car experiences together! Drivers have been sending positive feedback, too, as new apps launch to open testing, like Chargemap. Chargemap in Android Auto Today, we’ve reached the next milestone: the Android for Cars App Library is available in Jetpack as androidx.car.app 1.0.0-beta01 ! The move to Jetpack makes the library open source, gives you more visibility into our feature development, and provides API consistency with other Jetpack libraries. We’ve updated the developer guide and design guidelines to cover androidx.car.app . Test your app with Android Auto 6.1, or later, then you can publish your app to open testing in the Google Play St...

Posted by Eric Bahna, Product Manager In August, we announced plans to expand Android Auto’s app ecosystem to enable new navigation, parking, and electric vehicle charging apps. We’ve been hard at work collaborating with our early access partners to test and refine the Android for Cars App Library. Today, we’re releasing the library into an open beta, for any developer to use. This means you’ll now be able to design, develop, and test your navigation, parking or charging app on Android Auto. We’re looking forward to enabling Google Play Store publishing for your beta apps in the coming months. Three of our early access partners: ChargePoint, SpotHero, and Sygic The design phase is the time to familiarize yourself with our design guidelines and app quality guidelines . Driver safety is core to our mission and we want to help you optimize your app for the car. When it comes time to build your app, our new library will hopefully make development easy. Get started with the...

Posted by Mickey Kataria, Director of Product Management, Android for cars This blog post is part of a weekly series for #11WeeksOfAndroid . For each week, we’re diving into a key area and this week we’re focusing on Android Beyond Phones. Today, we’ll be talking about cars. Since 2014, Google has been committed to bringing the familiarity of apps and services from Android phones into the car in a safe and seamless way. We’re continuing to see strong momentum and adoption of both Android Auto and Android Automotive OS , and are excited to share new improvements that provide app developers the opportunity to reach more users in the car. Android Auto momentum We launched Android Auto for users to stay connected on-the-go and more easily access their Android phones on their car displays— while staying focused on the road. Android Auto is currently available with nearly every major car manufacturer and is on track to be in more than 100 million cars in the coming months. Many car manufac...

Posted by Madan Ankapura, Product Manager, Android Google’s vision is to bring a safe and seamless connected experience to every car. Since 2017, we have announced collaborations with vehicle manufacturers like Volvo Car Group, General Motors and others to power infotainment systems with Android Automotive OS, Google’s open-source Android platform, and to enable integration of Google technology and services. Now with the reveal of Volvo’s XC40 Recharge and the previously announced Polestar 2 , we are making progress on our vision with these brand new, customized infotainment systems that feature real-time updates to the Google Assistant, Google Maps and automotive apps created by Google, and the global developer community. Volvo XC40 Recharge & its infotainment unit With more manufacturers adding Android Automotive OS based infotainment systems to their vehicles, app developers have an opportunity to reach even more users with innovative, and drive optimized experiences. Concept ...

Posted by Madan Ankapura, Product Manager, Android and Oscar Wahltinez, Developer Programs Engineer Google's vision is to bring a safe and seamless connected experience in every car. You can see that vision at work today with Android Auto , which enables millions of users to bring apps they use on their smartphones into cars. As display technologies evolve and cars become more connected, there are even more opportunities for developers to build for innovative car experiences and reach a new audience. This is why a few years ago we introduced Android Automotive OS, an Android operating system that is familiar to millions of developers, tailored to run in the car. In just a short time, we have seen increasing demand for Android Automotive OS from vehicle manufacturers. Most recently, Polestar announced that they are shipping their first electric vehicle ( Polestar 2 ) running Android Automotive OS, and this is the first of many to come. Polestar 2 with Android Automotive OS Starting...