The future of Android is inside your car

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Published 18 May 2016

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Disclosure

’s already shown us Android Auto on the phone, as well as some of the new features that’ll come stard with the next version of the in-car infotainment platform, but it’s not stopping there. The company is currently working on a concept that bakes Android directly into the car’s dashboard so that you don’t have to rely on your smartphone to do all the heavy lifting, I got to see it in action at I/O.

I sat inside a luxuriously air conditioned Maserati Ghibli to experience how hopes Android N Android Auto can work in conjunction with one another. There’s no official name for the software, nor is there is a launch date, but it’s a neat concept that could do wonders for propagating the Android platform beyond just the smartphone or tablet in your h.

[the car dash]

Android Auto currently requires that you have a compatible receiver installed inside your car’s dashboard a smartphone running the app. But this concept is meant for any manufacturer to use as the car’s own native infotainment platform.

Here’s how it works: the concept is essentially an amalgamation of Android N Android Auto. Android N offers the native support for things like AM/FM radio, HVAC, Bluetooth calling media streaming, multi-channel audio, digital instrument clusters, while Android Auto does the heavy lifting with regard to running applications.

[interface]

The interface appears as if it’s split in two. More than half of it utilizes Android Auto’s cards motif, while the other fraction offers switches for the interior aspects of the car, including buttons for air conditioning, seat warmers, power windows, even a massager—a feature I had no idea even existed until I sat inside the Ghibli.

And it doesn’t stop there. This concept software includes supplementary information that’s displayed behind the steering wheel, like how fast you’re going how much gas you’ve got left. The information that’s offered up there is up to the manufacturer, but everything is built on top of Android source side.

This particular version of the concept software was featured on a 15-inch 4K touchscreen embedded into the center of the console, in addition to a smaller 720p display placed behind the steering wheel. It also runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 Automotive processor. said it’s letting the manufacturer conjure up how big the displays are what their components consist of, but the blueprints are all there for putting a distraction-free auto-friendly operating system into the car.

At this point in time, this particular concept is just that—nothing more than a concept. The demonstration that I had worked nicely I loved the idea of having Android baked into my car, but I have some worries about how this particular software will be received by the masses. For one, only Tesla Model S owners are currently used to this idea of this massive touchscreen affixed to the center console of the car. And two, there are studies that show tktktkt