Android Auto

Android Auto 8.7 is now rolling out, but almost no one has the ‘Coolwalk’ redesign

Ben Schoon | Jan 23 2023 - 6:56 am PT

Google announced the long-awaited “Coolwalk” redesign for Android Auto earlier this year, but as time goes on, the update is still only headed to a select few users. Now, Android Auto 8.7 is widely rolling out, but it still doesn’t bring the revamp.

Over the past few days, Google has launched Android Auto 8.7 to the stable update channel. This means that most users are able to head to the Play Store to get the update, but given Google’s usual staged rollouts, it might not show up on your device just yet. That’s fine, though, as the update itself doesn’t bring any major changes. There are likely some assorted bug fixes under the hood, but nothing of any particular substance.

That’s obviously going to be disappointing to many, as Android Auto 8.7 also doesn’t bring the “Coolwalk” redesign.

Rather, Google has been rolling out the revamped interface via a server-side update since early January. The change was launched for users in the beta program late last year, but only went to the stable channel a couple of weeks ago. However, the rollout has been quite slow so far. In a poll, over 90% of 9to5Google readers said they did not yet have the redesign. Those results were mirrored in another poll over on the r/AndroidAuto subreddit a few days ago, with over 2,200 of the 2,600 total votes not yet having access to “Coolwalk.”

That said, the update is still rolling out slowly to users.

One Acura RDX driver posted that “Coolwalk” showed up on their vehicle over the weekend on top of Android Auto 8.6. Clearly, the update is heading to users at a glacial pace, but it is showing up.