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Android Auto Coolwalk Updated With Highly Anticipated Feature

Google has recently announced the highly anticipated Android Auto redesign that many people know as Coolwalk, and while the rollout in the stable channel is happening slowly, beta users have been running the update since early December.
The new seekable progress bar 9 photos
Photo: reddit user Stark-23
The new Android UIThe new Android UIThe new Android UIThe new Android UIThe new Android UIThe new Android UIThe new Android UIThe new Android UI
The work on Coolwalk is making good progress, and recently, Google has started shipping another important feature to users in the Android Auto beta program.

Announced earlier this month, the seekable progress bar for music and podcasts is finally making its way to Android Auto users who have already received the redesigned interface. Google itself said the seek bar was one of the top requested features as it allows users to skip ahead in a song or podcast episode.

The new feature (currently an Android Auto-exclusive option, as CarPlay doesn't support such functionality) is now being enabled for users in the beta program, but general availability in the testing builds hasn’t been reached just yet. Not all beta users are getting the seek bar at this point, but availability should improve in the coming days as more reliability data is collected.

The seek progress bar is available not only in Spotify and YouTube Music but in pretty much every audio app that’s running on Android Auto. This is because Google has updated the music template on Android Auto, so it’s not an app-specific improvement, with the feature being implemented system-wide.

Android Auto Coolwalk was originally announced last year at Google’s I/O event, and it was projected to go live for the production channel in the summer.

The search company missed the release target, eventually bringing the redesign to the beta program in December. The public rollout was announced in early January, and it is expected to continue in the coming months, as Google uses a phased approach in order to ensure increased stability.

As for what makes Coolwalk such a highly desirable feature, it all comes down to the card-based UI that allows multiple apps to run side by side on the same screen, regardless of the display size. Inspired by the CarPlay Dashboard, Coolwalk puts the focus on the navigation experience and also comes with dedicated cards for music playback, phone calls, and other information powered by Google Assistant (such as the weather forecast).

If you haven’t received Coolwalk already, there’s not much you can do than wait for the redesign to be enabled on your device. The feature is enabled server-side, which means that Google improves the availability when it’s ready. Coolwalk isn’t tied to a specific app version, so updating to the latest version of Android Auto doesn’t guarantee the new design would be there.

The search giant hasn’t yet shared an ETA as to when the broad availability of Coolwalk is supposed to be reached, but if you're in the beta program, you could get the new seek bar in the latest build.
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About the author: Bogdan Popa
Bogdan Popa profile photo

Bogdan keeps an eye on how technology is taking over the car world. His long-term goals are buying an 18-wheeler because he needs more space for his kid’s toys, and convincing Google and Apple that Android Auto and CarPlay deserve at least as much attention as their phones.
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