One connects to your telephone, and the opposite one does not.
Android Auto and Android Automotive sound like two names for a similar product, which is not precisely serving to anybody. Fortunately, the distinction is fairly easy.
The one that the majority drivers will probably be acquainted with is Android Auto. The expertise is powered by your Android telephone, and a appropriate automobile show gives you with a driving-friendly interface for navigation, music, messaging and supported functions. It is Google’s response to Apple CarPlay and can be utilized through USB or wirelessly, relying in your telephone and automobile.
Android Automotive OS (AAOS) is a special animal. It operates instantly on the automobile’s {hardware}, that means there is no want for a telephone to do the heavy lifting. It will get just a little extra sophisticated when Google built-in comes into the combination (as if the naming wasn’t complicated sufficient), however that is one other story.
Android Auto wants your telephone
Think about your telephone the mind and the dashboard the bigger, much less distracting place to place the whole lot whereas driving.
Android Auto will not be an alternative to the software program that’s already in your automobile. It shows a specialised interface out of your telephone on the automobile’s display screen, permitting you to make use of appropriate apps like Google Maps, Spotify and messaging companies with out having to deal with the telephone.
That telephone dependency is a part of the attraction too. You may join to a different appropriate automobile and produce your apps, accounts and preferences with you. The automobile itself could also be operating Android, one other working system or one thing utterly proprietary.
The idea behind Apple CarPlay is comparable. Even CarPlay Extremely, which extends additional into appropriate automobiles by taking up extra shows and surfacing some automobile controls, nonetheless requires an iPhone.
Android Auto apps also can entry some automobile information if supported by the automobile producer, comparable to battery stage or estimated vary.
Android Automotive lives within the automobile
Android Automotive OS is greater than that, as it’s the software program platform that’s put in within the automobile itself and permits automakers to combine it with infotainment, instrument shows, local weather controls, EV info and different automobile capabilities fairly than simply offering an interface from a related telephone.
So, is Google built-in the identical as Android Automotive?
AAOS is open supply, whereas Google built-in depends on a individually licensed assortment of Google Automotive Companies. That may present a automobile with native Google Maps, Google Play and Google’s voice assistant, with out the driving force’s telephone. Google treats these companies as a separate, non-compulsory bundle fairly than a part of AAOS itself.
That distinction is essential whenever you’re studying a spec sheet. As an example, Rivian builds its personal software program expertise on prime of AAOS and does not provide Android Auto or CarPlay projection.
Polestar demonstrates how versatile issues could be. It may well have Google built-in in its AAOS-based vehicles and nonetheless be appropriate with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, so it is not a case of both/or. In 2020, the Polestar 2 was the primary manufacturing automobile to function Android Automotive OS.
