Android Auto, like Apple CarPlay, is one of the best marriages of your smartphone with your daily driver on the road. It keeps you off your phone while acknowledging the very real benefit of connecting your car to the internet, providing you with information imperative to your drive, like Google Maps, and entertainment to make the time go by quicker, like Spotify. While somecar manufacturers don’t agree with the integration of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay in their carsanymore for “safety” reasons (sure…), most welcome phone projection to their internal radio screens. One long-time downside of Android Auto has been that its icons are the same circular icons regardless of what phone you use. That, however, is changing with the latest version ofAndroid Auto.
The whole point of Android Auto is to make your life simpler and your drive safer, but it’s nice to have some eye candy grace your car’s display. Google-centric website9to5Googlefirst spotted that, inAndroid Auto 11.0, the icons displayed on screen will change depending on what phone you plug into your car. For example, if you plug in the latestGalaxy S23 Ultra, you’ll get Samsung’s squircle shapes that more closely align with One UI than the circular shapes that, say, theGoogle Pixel 8 Prohas to offer. Similarly, the battery and cellular/Wi-Fi status icons change.
Source:9to5Google
If you look close enough in the bottom-right corner of those screenshots, you’ll spot another change: the connectivity indicator and battery icon also get automatically themed to match Samsung’s One UI when a Galaxy device is connected. These elements only seem to be affected by Samsung phones, but there’s reason to hope the theming feature might be extended to other brands.
9to5Google’sBen Schoonplugged in an Oppo Find N3 Flip to see if the square-ish icons from ColorOS would translate in Android Auto, and they did. There’s not a full list of which devices will impart their icon shapes onto your head unit, so it might just be a case of plugging in your phone and finding out for yourself. As long as you have Android Auto 11.0, which is currently in beta, you’ll see the change. However, some people are even seeing it on the latest stable release of Android Auto 10.9, so it’s likely a server-side change.
A more personalized interface is always a welcome addition to the user experience, so we’re glad to see this change rolling out. If you’re just jumping onto the Android Auto train, hop on board withour picks for the 15 best Android Auto apps in 2023. There’s no surprise on what takes our top spot, and it’s Google Maps. Just two weeks ago, Maps added a feature seen on its phone version to its Android Auto version, andit’ll help you remember your parking spot more easily.
