Anyone here has the latest news regarding android auto? I saw the post somewhere the past mention it coming soon by end of 2019.

 

my lease will be up in 3 years before Acura comes up with an update on there informant system

 

LOL. If you set your expectations low enough, you will seldom be disappointed.

I'm clinging to hope for an update, but I'm not planning my life around it.

 

Dealer today said coming soon. Still to vague.

 

I'm in the market for a new car. Call me whatever you wanna call me, but I won't buy a car that doesn't have Android Auto. I stopped by an Acura dealer yesterday and talked with a sales manager about this. He said it's not guaranteed that the 2019 RDX will ever get Android Auto.

 

 

I was an iPhone guy since THE iPhone (2G?) but finally switched after the iPhone 6. My wife and son are still diehard iPhone users so I need CarPlay AND Android Auto in our next car.

 

I think the official Acura twitter confirmed that it's coming, then it will be here soon or later. I'm not too worry about that, my 2014 Mazda 3 waited 5 years long and we finally have it with a hardware upgrade. But I expect Acura to have Android Auto by the end of this year.
Since all their upcoming platform will also use the same interior design like the 19 RDX, I expect they are working hard to get AA into all their vehicles

 

There's nothing Acura can do. It's up to Google to work on it (or not work on it).

 

I was told February.. Take that for what it is worth..

 

Unless Google told you, it's not worth much. Acura has absolutely no idea, it's completely out of their hands.

 

 

That was from Google..

 

 

 

When I got my RDX in June, the salesman was talking that up and made it seem like AA was due any day.. 7 months later.. vaporware!

 

Guess what? They're still saying it. An Acura salesperson told me on Saturday that Android Auto will be added to the RDX very soon, definitely in the next month or so. I reminded him that he has absolutely no idea when it's coming since it's a Google thing, not an Acura thing. He then admitted the truth and said "I see you've done your research."

 

Coming soon since last June ...

 

any day now....

 

Why is everyone being so hard on Acura!? It's not their fault! They can't help but be deceiving when trying to make a sale.

 

Sad but true...

 

I'm having trouble getting my head around this whole compatibility issue. Obviously, there are many flavors of automotive infotainment devices, with several different input interfaces. And for each of these infotainment systems, there are probably multiple revisions of the system software "in the wild", which may or may not get upgraded. And there's no guarantee hardware specifications are consistent from year-to-year for a given implementation ( for Honda/Acura they often are NOT ). So this begs the question: who gets to deal with all this chaos?

I have heard Apple publishes minimum system hardware requirements to run CarPlay, and this has been a major issue with retroactively installing CarPlay in existing vehicles ( cough... 2016 Honda Pilot... cough ). But what about the software layer?

If you guys are saying it's all on Google/Android to make it work, does this mean Honda/Acura just sends them a spec sheet and says "here ya go, make it work"? I find that difficult to believe. I think there must be some responsibility on each end, but I'm having a tough time with who sets the rules when every darn car manufacturer wants to do something a little different from the others.

 

 

I have to ask, can I call it Android Audio?

 

Exactly. They should not have even mentioned Android Auto until after it was done, tested, and ready to be rolled out via software update.

They could have made people happy by surprising them with good news when it was ready. Instead they've got pissed off customers that want to know where the hell their Android Auto is.

 

Of course, it's in GOOGLE'S best interest to get their crapware into as many cars as possible. Same as for Apple, satellite radio, etc. Assuming there isn't a hardware limitation that's a show-stopper, Google will make it happen, eventually. A software driver for the touch pad shouldn't be a show stopper. It's like any other I/O device.

I have Android phones but I wouldn't make a car buying decision based on this one thing.

 

When we bought our car back in October, the sales guy told us that Android Auto would be released in two weeks at most. No, I didn't believe him for a second.

Personally I don't buy the argument that it's not Acura's fault. Acura should have tweaked, debugged and made sure the infotainment system was compatible before it went into the car. I've heard complaints about the infotainment systems in older Acuras, but I've only used this one. To me, it's awful. The navigation system makes me appreciate my old portable TomTom unit, and playing music via the USB port has been a total exercise in frustration whether using a thumb drive, an iPod or an iPhone. I haven't been able to get it to play a playlist in the proper order. Too frequently, it won't play music at all until we turn off the engine and start the car again. Every time we start the car, after finishing the song that had been playing before it defaults to a specific song that we have come to hate, because the system won't allow us to switch to something else until the song is almost over.

A few days ago we switched one of our phones from a two-year-old Google Pixel XL to an iPhone XR. We only switched because the proximity sensor on the Pixel died, making the phone almost as annoying to use as the RDX's infotainment system. We wouldn't have bought a new phone just for our car, but I have to say that it would be hard to overstate the difference that having Apple Car Play makes. The iPhone XR definitely feels like a significant upgrade from the first-generation Pixel XL, and I don't mind giving Apple a plug here after the Pixel's early demise and Acura and/or Google's failure to get Android Auto into the RDX in a timely manner. With Apple Car Play the audio system is ready to go much faster every time we start the car (although sometimes we do have to disconnect and reconnect the phone to get it working--not restart the car), and we can use Google Maps, Waze, Tidal, etc. Hallelujah, we can finally play the music we want to hear, when we want to hear it!

 

Recently got an Android Auto update (1/15/19) on my Samsung S8. One of the bullet points of the update is: "improved support for rotary input systems"

Obviously this is unrelated to the RDX True touchpad,. Just thought I would share this, as it indicates they are working on "input" systems comparability overall.

 

comparability = compatibility

 

Was reading a recent article on Google progress on Android in the car and it seems Google is at least aware. They mentioned acura has the relative positioning touchpad interface so maybe they are working on it lol. Very good article to read by the way to see where we are headed.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/25/18196234/google-android-auto-in-car-systems-apple-carplay-interview

Does that present any challenges? Because for the tech-obsessed, it’s nice to see these car manufacturers coming out with bigger screens, and we’re not at a point where we’re doing resistive touchscreens anymore really. The technology’s catching up. Whether or not you really love having a giant screen in your car is a separate conversation. But does that present a challenge in having all of these form factors, or do you have that pretty well figured out at this point?

 

As acura is not giving out much info and claiming google is working on true touchpad integration, it seems asking questions on google forum might get some attention. We can search for "acura rdx" on below webpage and post questions. A few are already there.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!overview

 

good to see they're aware and working to adapt to all of the various input methods. Just unfortunate it's taking this long...hopefully they get it fixed in the next couple months.

 

We're all hoping.

 

While searching through all the settings looking for a reason I haven't been able to get the latest System Update (D1.1.2)** I found reference to Android Auto ...somewhere in the settings, but I don't remember where at the moment. LOL So this would seem to confirm Acura's intention to provide it when Google has it ready. In the meantime, I am satisfied with using the cell phone holder (recommended here) and using AA on it directly. AA launches automatically when in the car when the phone is out of my pocket.

**I received an email today from Acura stating that there is a delay in my RDX getting the update and it will be resolved in the next few days.

 

**Sure, and Android Auto is coming any day now.

How so? How did you set that up?

 

Yes, any day now! LOL

There is a setting in the AA app on the phone.
Autolaunch: Start AA automatically when your phone connects to your cars bluetooth, AND wait until phone is out of pocket or bag to start AA.
It can be set differently for different cars if needed.

 

Thanks!

 

While randomly surfing the net found android auto head's interview on verge. It is a long interview but he mentioned acura's touchpad in below excerpt. Interestingly this was posted on Jan 25th and he mentioned the plan to roll out some updates in next 6 months including input methods. So looks like acura really is waiting on google.

"The screen size and the orientation and shape is one complexity. But then there’s also — Acura has a touchpad, right? You have relative and you have absolute touchpad. There’s rotary controllers. You have touchscreens. You have all these different input methods. So it definitely is a challenge.
Yeah, so we’re talking with Honda, and we’re working on that. So it is complex. I think the good news is that it pushes you to create a simpler system. And so some of what we’ll be rolling out over the course of the next six months in 2019 are simplifications of the system that I think will help it adapt to the different screen shapes and sizes, to the different input methods. But also, at the end of the day, I think it will make it more intuitive and useful for users. So we’re really excited about that."

Here is the Link to interview

 

 

The thing is, though, Acura probably should have kept quiet about Android Auto "coming soon" when the release date was completely out of their hands. To this day there are Acura sales guys saying that Android Auto is coming "any day now."