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If you’re an Android Auto user who’s waiting for the latest update, you’re wait’s going to continue. Google released an update for the similarly-named Android Automotive that improves the Assistant experience. This is one of the few updates coming to the platform.
For the uninitiated, Android Auto and Android Automotive are two different platforms. The former is designed to run on external devices within your car. Android Automotive is built to run within the car itself. It’s integrated deeper into your vehicle.
As noted by 9To5Google, this operating system isn’t super popular; it’s on less than 50 vehicles. As such, updating it isn’t quite on Google’s priority list. Updates are rare, but they happen.
Android Automotive gets a new update for Assistant
Since Android Automotive is a Google product, it has access to Google Assistant. When you summon it on your car’s touch screen, you’ll see the same Assistant animation that you’d see on phones.
The only thing is that the platform has been using an older version of the Google Assistant animation for a few years. It’s been using an animation that’s been out-of-date since the Pixel 3 series. That shows you that Google has not been thinking about this platform all that much.
After the new Android Automotive update, Google Assistant has the new glowing animation that we got with the Pixel 4 series. We see the red, green, blue, and yellow lines expand and contract with your voice. Also, there’s a glowing effect added to the animation that gives it some more pizzazz.
Other than that, it doesn’t seem that Google made any other major improvements to the experience. For all we know, the company could have made some minor changes to the software that aren’t user-facing. While the changes to Android Automotive don’t happen all that often, it’s nice to see an update every now and then.