Gadgetory

you got android on your phone you can have Android on your wrist and now you can have Android in your car announce last summer Android auto is finally rolling out into vehicles you can actually buy and the Hyundai Sonata is the first car to come with it shipped from the factory it turns out the future of your car is your phone for years the center console in your car has been dominated by the infotainment system which controls everything from tuning the radio to navigation to even managing the climate control system in some cases for the most part these have been universally terrible confusing menus slow performance and clunky UIs we've all known for years that the best navigation system for your car is your phone but using it while driving can be clunky and just unsafe Android auto is goal is to present a clean familiar interface in your car that keeps your eyes on the road and your hands off of your phone the way Android auto works in this Hyundai is similar to how we work in many cars instead of completely replacing the vehicles native interface Android auto runs as an app powered by your phone it provides the processing connectivity for the dash interface you can't actually do anything with the phone itself on a Hyundai's touch screen you're presented with a familiar if stripped-down version of Android 5.0 lollipop there are five panels navigation phone dialer information music and media and a panel for diagnostic information about your car which Hyundai isn't supporting in this version but for the most part Android auto wants you to use your voice to do things so you keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road navigation works exactly as you'd expect powered by Google Maps and includes all of the traffic info points of interests and other features Google Maps has on your phone with audible directions coming through the car speakers you can search for directions with your voice or using an on-screen keyboard if the car is in park and you can get info like hours of operation and phone numbers for business locations you can also push the voice button and dictate text messages which is way safer than trying to peck them out on the phone screen while driving the dialer will show the recent call log from your phone and you can turn calls with one tap or using your voice to initiate the music and media panel access to songs and podcasts from apps and support Android auto the list is pretty short right now but Google Music Spotify and pocket casts are here the media apps all have to conform to a similar look and feel with large touchable buttons and pared down lists again the goal is to get you to use your voice as much as possible instead of scrolling through a list of thousands of artists just push the voice button and say play Baroness to start streaming sweet sludgy jams in your car it's not great for finding exact albums or songs and perhaps unsurprisingly voice control works much better with google music than spotify play flo rida front and center is a main dashboard which shows the currently playing song the point of destination if you have navigation going the current weather upcoming calendar appointments and locations that you've recently searched for it also shows incoming hangouts and text messages but you can't actually read them here's the message sweet Lambo dog compatibility can be hit or miss here the native SMS apps and some phones don't work very well but Google's own hangouts and messenger apps are pretty reliable but what you won't ever see here are alerts from email Instagram Twitter Facebook or the many other apps and services that ping your phone all day long that's by design Google paired this down to just the things it thinks you'll need while driving and nothing else that isn't to say you can have some fun the full power of Google Voice Search is on tap so queries like what's the weather going to be like this weekend and how old is Jared Leto work just like they would on your smartphone the system dictating your answers aloud instead of displaying them on the screen but managing your calendar scrolling through your inbox and playing candy crush will still require you to pull over and disconnect which is probably a good thing Android auto can have some performance issues during my testing I used a number of different Android phones and some perform better than others the platform requires Android 5.0 lollipop which instantly rules out a lot of older devices in every case the phone gets pretty warm when you're running Android auto and even though it's plugged in that doesn't guarantee your battery's getting charged performance issues and future limitations aside if you have an Android phone you're probably gonna want this in your next car I know I do