- One of the most important places I think
you're ever going to use your phone is here in the car.
Now, it's also one of the more dangerous places.
And how many times a day do you drive around
and you see somebody looking down
on their phone at a stop light,
or even worse, while they're actually driving.
We've all done it, I know,
but the manufacturers are trying to do their part
to keep us from using our phones in the car,
as much as we can,
while still using our phones in the car
as much as we can.
That's where things like Android Auto
and Apple's CarPlay come into play.
And really, I think that's one of the most important things
we can do in the car.
Still be able to use your phone for music and navigation,
and actually communications, but to do so safely.
Now we've been waiting for new versions of Android Auto
to come out for a while now.
They said it was coming out late summer, it's finally here.
I've been using it for a few days,
it is a great, great, great improvement.
So let me go get back in the garage,
and let's take a deeper look at this.
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So this is if folks, it's the updated Android Auto.
Now I'm using it on the Alpine Halo Nine,
which by the way, is still really awesome.
Go watch my full video on that
if you haven't seen it before.
Anyway, this is a whole new user interface.
The app's mostly still look the same
and there is some new ones in there too,
but, it's how you get around that's really different.
So first, the old sort of home screen is gone.
So too are the little cards that you'd find on them.
Now instead, we have the sort of proper app drawer,
or they call it the app launcher.
The really cool thing about it
is that your recently used apps float to the top.
Now that's a big deal
because it's a hundred times better than the old list
that we would have to scroll through every single time.
This is just way more efficient.
That means that your eyes spend more time on the road
and less time on the screen,
and fractions of a second matter here.
And you will also notice a few new apps,
and they're actually things
that you didn't install yourself.
There are icons for calendar, news, weather and reminders.
Now it's really just Google System doing it's thing.
Do it in whatever voice you have set,
which for me is John Legend,
because I have a wife and two daughters
and John Legend is just way cooler than me.
- [Car Audio System] Hey John Legend.
Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey.
That hey was in the key of E.
- Anyway, it'll read appointments out loud
or kick you into a new source like CNN,
or you can set reminders,
or, you can have it read the weather
as only John Legend can.
- [Car Audio System] Right now in Pensacola,
it's 90 degrees fahrenheit and sunny.
Today it'll be clear, with a forecasted high of 92
and a low of 73.
- Now the other big deal
is what you see when you're inside of an app.
Now you've got one touch access to audio playback.
So if you're in say, Waze, you can control the audio
without having to dump out of that
and back into, say, Pocket Cast or Spotify.
Now you never have to leave your navigation app,
and that's a really big deal, it's the way it should work.
There's also a button for notifications.
So it's easy to find a missed text message,
and of course, there's the microphone for voice.
Now I thought I'd miss having
that phone icon front and center, but I really don't.
I can use my voice easily enough to make a phone call,
or it's just a couple taps away.
Now the new theme of Android Auto is dark
and it's real nice, I like it.
My only complaint is that the notifications
that drop down from the top of the screen
often end up being dark on dark.
Now it's not so bad
when you're looking at things in like an emulator,
but out there on the road with the sun and the glare,
it's not good during the day.
Now it's a lot better in an app like Google Maps or Waze,
which have lighter backgrounds,
but when it's dark on dark, it's pretty hard to see.
And I tell ya, yes, I definitely still love Android Auto
a lot more than Apple CarPlay,
even though they're a lot more similar now.
But, more on that in the fall once iOS 13 has come out.
So that's it for the Android Auto update.
I tell ya, it's a really, really good update,
it makes using it so, so much easier.
By the way, this little thing I'm using up here,
that's an Alpine unit.
I've got a whole video on that,
go watch it if you haven't already, highly recommend it.
Love having a nine inch screen here in the car.
If you've got any other questions, find me on the socials.
Be sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already.
That's it, see you later.
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