Google opens Android Auto to new navigation, parking, and charging apps

Abner Li | Apr 5 2021 - 9:21 am PT

In August of last year, Google announced that it would allow more kinds of Android Auto apps on the Play Store. Developers can now publicly release new navigation, parking, and charging apps for Android Auto.

In March, Google started the process by releasing the Android for Cars App Library as part of Jetpack. Regular users could test these clients in recent months by signing up for a beta program, but that’s no longer required as the new Android Auto applications can now be published to production. Requirements include:

Design your app with our developer guide.
Develop your app with the latest version of androidx.car.app (1.0.0-rc01 as of this writing).
Test your app with the desktop head unit and the new testing library.
Publish your app to the production track in the Play Console!

This change addresses one of the most common requests from Android Auto users for more and new app categories. Google has historically closely managed what apps are available on the platform to ensure user safety on the road. For example, all media apps share the exact same template, while navigation was restricted to Google Maps or Waze.

Our goal with the library is to enable you to easily bring your app to 500+ models of Android Auto-compatible vehicles while meeting our app quality guidelines. The library abstracts away the complexities of screen form factors and input modes so you can focus on what makes your app shine.

Early examples above (clockwise from upper left) include T map, Chargepoint, Sygic, PlugShare, AmiGO, 2GIS, A Better Route Planner, and Flitsmeister.