A Better Routeplanner has just announced that support for Android Auto is now live in beta, so the first testers can give it a try right now ahead of the general availability likely planned for later this year.
ABRP has expanded beyond the mobile device screen back in January when the app officially received support for CarPlay. And at that point, the team working on the app said they were looking into Android Auto, but shared no further specifics.
Fast forward to this week, and here’s the first beta of ABRP going live on Android Auto with the typical feature lineup you’d expect from the app in the car.
However, It's worth knowing that the maps you see on ABRP are based on OSMDroid, so no, the service that powers the Android Auto experience is not Google Maps.
“Google doesn't offer Maps as a basis for Android Auto navigation, so for the moment we're using an open source setup from OSMDroid, but we're actively looking for another setup which will allow us to use Vector maps to load faster and move more smoothly (we don't really want to have to create our own map from scratch),” the team explained in a comment on reddit.
While the app is still in beta, several features need to be further improved, including the touch support currently offered on Android Auto. For example, users can’t move the map around using a typical drag gesture, but the ABRP team says this is a limitation forced by Google that could eventually be addressed in a future update.
“Unfortunately that's a limitation Google placed on the navigation template we're allowed to use. We've already put in requests to be allowed to handle touch events (to allow for more utility on the interface, and being able to move the map around),” the team says.
For now, the good news is that ABRP is finally on Android Auto, so fingers crossed for the work to advance as fast as possible and thus get the stable build rather sooner than later.
Fast forward to this week, and here’s the first beta of ABRP going live on Android Auto with the typical feature lineup you’d expect from the app in the car.
However, It's worth knowing that the maps you see on ABRP are based on OSMDroid, so no, the service that powers the Android Auto experience is not Google Maps.
“Google doesn't offer Maps as a basis for Android Auto navigation, so for the moment we're using an open source setup from OSMDroid, but we're actively looking for another setup which will allow us to use Vector maps to load faster and move more smoothly (we don't really want to have to create our own map from scratch),” the team explained in a comment on reddit.
While the app is still in beta, several features need to be further improved, including the touch support currently offered on Android Auto. For example, users can’t move the map around using a typical drag gesture, but the ABRP team says this is a limitation forced by Google that could eventually be addressed in a future update.
“Unfortunately that's a limitation Google placed on the navigation template we're allowed to use. We've already put in requests to be allowed to handle touch events (to allow for more utility on the interface, and being able to move the map around),” the team says.
For now, the good news is that ABRP is finally on Android Auto, so fingers crossed for the work to advance as fast as possible and thus get the stable build rather sooner than later.
¨ Android users! Android Auto support is now available in the latest beta version! Sign up for the open beta on Google play ò https://t.co/S7gWj9zkYa
— ABetterRoutePlanner (@RouteBetter) March 24, 2021
Using AA in the beta is available to all and does not require a premium subscription. pic.twitter.com/sQFpdLXWKP