New Android Auto UI is finally coming to public beta testers

You might remember that back In May, Google showed off a pretty major makeover to the Android Auto interface. The design overhaul was originally slated for a summer release, but that obviously didn't come to pass. We have no idea what caused the delay, but it seems to finally be coming to an end as the new UI has started seeding to public beta users.

Unfortunately, a quick peek at the Google Play Store listing for Android Auto reveals that all of the slots for the beta branch are already full. This means that if you aren't already a beta tester, you won't be able to experience the new UI quite yet.

New Android Auto UI

The new Android Auto interface is rounder and cleaner, with bigger UI elements and controls. Google's goal was to make it more legible and have the controls be more reachable. Split-screen should be much more effective now too. Here is a list of some of the major Android Auto changes.

• Your map will now be closer to the driver in the new dashboard with improved size/reachability.
• The dashboard media card has a completely new look and now grows and shrinks dynamically.
• You can now make the map fill the entire Android Auto area, giving users more choices to pick layouts on large screens.
• There's a new app dock in the rail to make it easy to switch between recent apps with one tap.
• More parts of the system have been updated to adopt Material You and modernized UI components and layouts.
• Music and media recommendations from Google Assistant can now be accessed with one swipe of the dashboard media card.
• The old status icons and notification center bell has been merged into one easy-to-parse, tappable area on the rail that includes the number of unread messages.

We have no info on when a full release for the Android Auto update is coming, but we'll be sure to keep you posted with any new developments.

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