Man, I’m glad Android Auto exists, I’m glad it’s finally appearing in more new cars with wireless connectivity (although MANY new cars still only have wireless carplay and wired Android), and I’m glad we’re finally getting the ability to open Google Maps on our phones while it’s also open on the car’s display.
But damn it still does some dumb shit.
I’ll just drop this one for now: I find it weird and dumb that Google Maps in Android Auto will let you send a progress share to a contact’s email address but not to their phone number as a text message with a link.
An email address might send a notification to somebody’s Google Maps app, but it’s certainly never happened on my partner’s iPhone. She just gets a link via email, and she is not the checking email sort — so I usually follow up with a text message telling her to check her email. 😑 (I wish she’d just get a Samsung…)
The official line is that Android Auto for Phone Screens was a stopgap until Assistant Driving Mode was ready, but then they say they noticed most people were just running their phones with Google Maps open, which of course also has media player integration. Given the low user numbers of both previous versions, they shuttered it rather than continue to invest in it.
Yet it worked for years before Assistant existed. It used to work offline. Google had to work to take it away from us.