Using native Acura apps, moving your finger on the touchpad corresponds to where the "cursor" is. Top right on the pad is top right on the screen, so you can, in theory, manage the screen without a lot of looking.

But using any apps in Android Auto (Waze, google maps, Spotify, for example), the touchpad does not work the same way, and you have to constantly move your finger around and watch the screen to see what "lights up", to know where you are on the screen. There is no cursor, and no connection between the touchpad location and the screen location. So manipulating any AA application is hard, impossible without staring at the screen (the exact opposite of the reason for android auto in the first place.)
I would have thought that after 3 years, this might have been fixed, but it has not (unless the '22 fixed it? Not that I have heard).

Worse, at times recently, the movement of my finger on the pad stopped showing as a highlight on the respective spot on the screen, so there is no way to know where you are and how to select anything. That behavior has come and gone lately.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I sure wish we had a touchscreen.

 

Apple CarPlay behaves the same way as Android Auto. While I don't dislike the touchpad in the RDX, I seldom use it. For any navigation app, I will select my destination using my phone, then just hit go using the touchpad. I use the steering wheel controls for selecting my SXM presets. And I will toggle CarPlay and SXM by pushing down on the mini touchpad on the right. I have a touchscreen in my Ridgeline, and I tend to operate pretty much the same way there, not using the touchscreen that much. I find that even with a touchscreen, I need to take my eyes off the road.

 

An issue with using the phone's screen with AA is when you connect to AA it locks out the phones screen (at least on waze).

 

Yes. It is awful. TrueTouch is stupid and inherently flawed, but Acura can’t admit that, so they have to stick with it for a generation. It kinda works on the Acura UI screens, which are 4x2 or 3x2 grids with large, clearly delineated icons, but AA’s layout is more organic, so you have to constantly flick your finger around the touchpad and watch what it corresponds to on the screen to get to the item you want. My wife’s rdx has it and I hate it enough that it would keep me from buying an Acura with it for myself, and I’m historically an Acura guy, having bought multiple new Acuras.