Android Auto chokes passenger use

MathewWM — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 12:23:24 GMT

The Android Auto app is close to great, but it's missing two crucial things.

1.) It's silly to not be able to choose a specific song. You still have the song queue to choose individual pieces but it's clunky and really doesn't cut it.

2.) It's sillier to not have a proper search/filter option. At least give us a way to find the song we want without manually scrolling our playlist queue. (Google Voice doesn't cut it either. It's clunky and inaccurate.) Maybe it's a limit of building for Android Auto or something, but there has to be a smarter way of handling this that doesn't involve unplugging the phone every time.

I understand and respect the effort to reduce driver distraction, but it's really not working. It's just harder and more inconvenient to get what I want out of the app. It's not your job to protect us from ourselves, and I think the inconvenience of achieving a desired result has had quite the opposite effect. As for the minimalism, fine--but it should not be to the extent of sacrificing functionality.

I mean, even Verizon's own Message+ texting app has an option to turn off driving mode; maybe you could consider a similar alternative for the case of passenger operation? Road trip DJ'ing is effectively non-operational with the Auto app's current design. I love you guys but this is frustrating!

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Android Auto chokes passenger use