Google Maps replace makes Android Auto look a bit worse

An replace to Android Auto is now rolling out that “facilities” the map in Google Maps.

It’s not simply you. When you’ve stepped into your automobile and booted up Android Auto lately, you might need seen a change to how Google Maps appears to be like. The change is that the map is now centered to the show as a complete, which locations some UI parts on prime of the map.

This transformation, which seems to be rolling out impartial of your Android Auto model, popped up just a few days in the past and is now broadly rolled out to most customers. It solely impacts Google Maps. Within the picture beneath, you’ll be able to see that Maps is now displaying the driving force’s location instantly within the middle of the show the place it beforehand, as pictured above, was off to the facet.

We had been first alerted to this variation on January 24 (thanks Sterling), and we’ve performed some testing within the time since. Firstly, that is dependent in your display screen dimension. On bigger shows, the brand new “centering” of the UI is barely noticeable, and doesn’t put any related data behind the locations. On wider shows, this tweak doesn’t actually have any influence in any respect.

Extra importantly, this doesn’t have an effect on precise navigation. When you begin navigation, the map strikes again over. Reddit person u/DaiaBu reveals this completely in a fast demo. That is precisely the habits we seen in our checks.

Why did Google make this variation within the first place? That continues to be unclear. Personally, my finest guess is that this helps on the more and more frequent sq. shows displaying up in additional autos. However provided that Android Auto is used way more broadly, it simply makes the default, non-navigation view look just a bit bit worse. It’s purely an aesthetic draw back, although, moderately than having important purposeful impacts.

The most recent replace to Android Auto, v13.6, doesn’t change this habits, nor it’s the trigger. In our testing, we discovered the centered UI to be reside on Android Auto v13.4, nevertheless it solely confirmed up after updating to the newest Google Maps model.

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