It seems incredible, but in just a few years, Google has achieved what car manufacturers have failed to do: get drivers interested in touchscreens. The vast majority of drivers don’t want a touchscreen if they don’t have Android Auto, for one simple reason: it lets them do the same things they do on their mobile phone.
The possibilities offered by Android Auto are not present in the systems pre-installed in modern cars, even the best ones. But what seems obvious today, accessing the mobile system in the car, was not at the time, not even for Google itself. Today, on the occasion of 10th anniversary of Android Auto, Android TV and Wear OSThe company shared details about the development of these systems and why it created them in the first place.
For context, let’s recall that since the launch of the first Android device in 2008, Google had focused exclusively on smartphones. But everything began to change in 2010, when a new Google Maps feature, turn-by-turn navigationbecame an overnight success. Suddenly, people were looking for ways to use their phones while driving, whether with mounts or more dangerous methods.
Google realized the potential of using Android in cars, but also the danger it could pose. So it hired experts in road distractions and road safety to alleviate the problems associated with accessing applications in the car; and worked with manufacturers in the sector to find a way to present Android on their systems. The result is already known: Android Auto, already present in more than 200 million vehicles worldwide, and from which projects like Android Automotive have been born to run Android directly in the car.
Other projects were born in the same way. In the same year, in 2014, Google launched Android TV, but the beginning of the story happened a year before, with the launch of Google Chromecast. Once again, the company realized that theUsers asked for something more than sending videos from their mobile phone: They wanted to use the same apps directly on their TV. In this sense, Android Auto and Android TV are very similar, both in their function and in their birth.
Apps on Android TV
Free Android
However, in the case of Android TV, Google had an obstacle: the system had to work directly on the TV and not on the mobile phone as Android Auto does. Something particularly difficult with the “hardware” of the TVs of that time (even some current ones). The work of the Google team focused on optimization of all layers of Android.
Finally, we must not forget the other system launched in 2014: Wear OS. The original name of the system, Android Wear, reveals that it is indeed based on Android; although Google claims that from the beginning The idea was never simply “to create a small mobile for the wrist”.. In the case of Wear OS, the challenges were the form factor and ergonomics; specifically, how to control the system on such a small screen and how to display all the information. Using common elements today, such as widgets or different screens containing information about apps and functions, was key.
