- Google announced that Android Auto’s music apps will receive significant design improvements
- Developers will benefit from more flexibility when designing their app experiences on dashboards with Android Auto.
- Improvements include more content layout templates, better visual headers, and smoother navigation features.
The experience of listening to your favorite tunes in your car could soon be transformed, with Google giving Android Auto app developers more flexibility when designing their apps to improve layouts and make navigation easier.
Last week, Google announced a major AI-based upgrade to Android Auto. The Android Auto 17.0 beta is now available, and at its I/O 2026 developer event, Google announced some of the changes coming this year, including overhauls of several of the most popular music apps, including Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Gaana, PocketFM, and TuneIn.
An update to the Automotive App Library will give app developers more options for how they want navigation and content playback to appear in Android Auto. Until now, developers faced restrictions on layout design due to security concerns, and this upgrade gives them more freedom in designing their apps to deliver experiences with minimal distraction on different types of dashboards that support Android Auto.
The company will increase template adaptability to give developers more content layout options, which include new headers to enhance visual elements, as well as “spotlight sections that can be placed in scroll boxes to highlight specific content, and variations of grid items to support different content types and states.”
Google details the changes in more detail in a post on its developer blog, adding that it will also “introduce new template components and features to help developers create even more engaging experiences.”
“For multimedia applications, we are introducing an adaptive mini player, so users can navigate while easily managing playback,” the post said, adding “Finally, we are adding more component types, including Chip and CondensedItem, to increase the ways content can be displayed and interacted with.”
Some developers have already started using Android Auto’s new layout options to revamp their car app experiences, and Google is inviting more developers to join its early access beta program and start using the new Car Library app templates.
