Android Auto gets revamped media controls, message previewing, and support for MMS/RCS

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Android Auto is one of the best car head unit systems available today, though it still has a lot of issues and missing features. Its premise is simple: mirror information from your phone onto a display on your dashboard. While, of course, it has the potential to be distracting, it’s designed in a way that it has minimal impact on your ability to drive. There are application restrictions, and only applications that have been whitelisted by Google can actively show on it. It’s useful, more than anything, for controlling your music or looking at Google Maps. Google has announced revamped media controls, message previewing, and support for MMS and RCS.

The improved layout focuses on providing larger album art and bigger text so you can spend less time trying to choose a song and instead focus on driving. On top of that, the Google Assistant‘s integration has been improved so that you can be a little bit vaguer in your song requests.

Google also added message previewing so that you can see snippets of messages you’ve received on your smartphone. They’ll only pop up when your car is stopped, so you don’t need to worry about getting distracted while driving. It’s entirely optional as well, so if you’d rather not have messages coming through on the car’s dash while other people are in the car, you can switch it off.

And with that added message support, the latest update to Android Auto also brings support for MMS messages (used for group chats) and RCS. That opens up a whole new world of available options to you if you are interested in using your Android Auto for communication.

You can download the latest version of the Android Auto application below!