The rollout of Android Auto Coolwalk was so gradual that while some (few) received it at the end of November, others received it at the end of the year. In my case, I’ve been using the new interface for about six months and although I generally consider it a positive development, I think it has a lot of room for improvement: this is what I like least about Android Auto Coolwalk six months later.
Without going any further, until its own arrival, it was obviously improvable, both because of its scaling and because there are functions that are not accessible to the public or what it costs to adapt certain applications as important as Waze. In this direction it lacks a little more uniformity.
The great novelty of Coolwalk is the division of the screen into three different windows to display the navigation, entertainment and messaging applications. have more information in the same space, so you can see the gist while watching CarPlay style. It’s undoubtedly the best, no matter how comfortable and convenient the new reading progress bar is.
more customization
And the worst is everything else. Continuing with the design section, I’m missing a bit more customization in the interface itself, so you can play with something as basic as window distribution or window size. It is understood that when there are three applications of each type open (for example Google Maps, Spotify and WhatsApp), the most important is probably that of navigation, but perhaps the user could be authorized for a modification minimum.
Actually, lack of customization is an Android Auto problem Over the years, Coolwalk hasn’t improved and today nothing else can be done except organize which apps appear (alphabetical or custom order) or switch between light/dark modes.
Let artificial intelligence reach the car
I understand that Google has a clear limit: restricting Android Auto to maximize functionality, leaving aesthetics relatively in the background. But if so, where do I put a a remarkable effort is in the experience with the Google Assistant. The latest version of Android Auto has a clear “needs improvement” here, although that’s not Coolwalk’s fault so much as Google’s in general.
Yes there are a lot of commands to get the most out of Android Auto, but still we have to learn to talk to it in a certain way so that it understands us, it does not always understand us, some procedures are extremely long (and therefore impractical) and your suggestions sometimes they are not the most appropriate. The need of the latest advances in artificial intelligence are integrated into voice assistants to integrate is imperative. Because in a scenario where being less distracted is vital, being able to tell Google to call home or keep playing the latest playlist and figure us out without further explanation.
Unexplained absences and cuts
Although to a lesser extent, there are other flaws that tarnish the Android experience in vehiclessome of them as unjustifiable as weather app shutdowns: in previous versions, temperature and status were displayed in the top bar, but now you have to settle for being informed by the Google Assistant or install additional applications such as Meteology.
We were talking about Waze earlier because the “sister” of Google Maps is the navigation choice of many people (including myself) and despite its adaptation, it also lost some stuff along the way with the latest version. Thus, it severely restricted the use of voice commands, and the mid-stream crash bar was lost. Question from the dev team (remember it belongs to Google) or more wood about the slowness when changing applications to a new environment?
While some of these issues will be tweaked or incorporated into future updates, for the two big outstanding topics of the current situation of Android which involve drastic changes, customization and revitalization of Google Assistant, it will be time to wait for new versions.
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In Xataka Android | Android Auto Coolwalk can also be a nightmare: here’s what you can do to remove it
