Photo: Google
Google announced the major Coolwalk overhaul of Android Auto at the I/O event earlier this year, and according to the company itself, the public rollout was supposed to start in the summer.
With just one month left until the summer comes to an end, everybody now hopes to see Coolwalk going live in August as part of the update to version 8.0.
In the meantime, however, more information on the progress made by Google on Coolwalk behind closed doors emerges thanks to a post from reddit user ahmadravat.
Enabled on a rooted device, Coolwalk now seems to be running smoother on smaller screen sizes, with a photo showing precisely how the new experience will be rendered on such a display. Coolwalk was designed from the very beginning to enable users to run multiple apps side-by-side on the same screen, regardless of its size, using dedicated cards.
With an approach inspired by the CarPlay dashboard, Coolwalk, therefore, makes it possible to have essential Android Auto apps, including navigation software, music players, and phone calls, on the same screen, even when the display doesn’t measure more than 7 inches.
At this point, it looks like the navigation bar at the bottom only comes in black, and changing it to a daytime visual style isn’t possible. It’s not clear if Google plans to add such a setting when Coolwalk is ready for prime time or if the bar will just remain black.
And last but not least, it looks like the app support for the card-based UI continues to be very limited, as not all developers have updated their software in preparation for the debut of Coolwalk. In fact, not even Google appears to be in a rush to do this, as Waze, which is currently one of the most popular navigation apps on Android Auto, doesn’t come with support for the Coolwalk interface.
In the meantime, however, more information on the progress made by Google on Coolwalk behind closed doors emerges thanks to a post from reddit user ahmadravat.
Enabled on a rooted device, Coolwalk now seems to be running smoother on smaller screen sizes, with a photo showing precisely how the new experience will be rendered on such a display. Coolwalk was designed from the very beginning to enable users to run multiple apps side-by-side on the same screen, regardless of its size, using dedicated cards.
With an approach inspired by the CarPlay dashboard, Coolwalk, therefore, makes it possible to have essential Android Auto apps, including navigation software, music players, and phone calls, on the same screen, even when the display doesn’t measure more than 7 inches.
At this point, it looks like the navigation bar at the bottom only comes in black, and changing it to a daytime visual style isn’t possible. It’s not clear if Google plans to add such a setting when Coolwalk is ready for prime time or if the bar will just remain black.
And last but not least, it looks like the app support for the card-based UI continues to be very limited, as not all developers have updated their software in preparation for the debut of Coolwalk. In fact, not even Google appears to be in a rush to do this, as Waze, which is currently one of the most popular navigation apps on Android Auto, doesn’t come with support for the Coolwalk interface.
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