jejb
Military
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2020
- Posts
- 1,578
- Reaction score
- 1,448
- Location
- NW Arkansas
- Ram Year
- 2022
- Engine
- 6.7 Cummins
Some history. I've been an Android user for as long as it's been around. I would root my early devices, mostly so I could run certain apps and skins. Once aftermarket auto stereos began to support screen mirroring, I had yet another reason to keep phones rooted. Running my Android phone fully from the truck screen worked great.
Along comes Android Auto (AA) and I thought my rooting/mirroring days were over. Well, not so much. AA kind of sucks since it only allows a few apps to be displayed on the head unit. And it took over the stereo. It was all or nothing. So I gave up on AA years ago and just bluetoothed in content I wanted and used Google Maps on the phone. And that works.
But I just got a 12" uConnect 5 system. So I gave AA another shot since it's wireless now and I was hoping I'd have more control via multiple custom screens. But it didn't work out. AA still only allows a very small subset of my applications. The 12" uConnect does let me add a widget below AA, but that's it. I can't swipe for more screens, add new ones, etc.
So I'm going back to just bluetoothing podcasts, etc over to the uConnect system and running Google Maps on the phone. My question is, am I missing something? Is there someway to get all my apps to mirror over? Is there some way to get multiple custom screens while AA is running? Is there some functionality there that I'm missing that makes the downsides worthwhile?
Damn shame Google can't improve this product, but it really does not seem to have improved much at all over the years.
Along comes Android Auto (AA) and I thought my rooting/mirroring days were over. Well, not so much. AA kind of sucks since it only allows a few apps to be displayed on the head unit. And it took over the stereo. It was all or nothing. So I gave up on AA years ago and just bluetoothed in content I wanted and used Google Maps on the phone. And that works.
But I just got a 12" uConnect 5 system. So I gave AA another shot since it's wireless now and I was hoping I'd have more control via multiple custom screens. But it didn't work out. AA still only allows a very small subset of my applications. The 12" uConnect does let me add a widget below AA, but that's it. I can't swipe for more screens, add new ones, etc.
So I'm going back to just bluetoothing podcasts, etc over to the uConnect system and running Google Maps on the phone. My question is, am I missing something? Is there someway to get all my apps to mirror over? Is there some way to get multiple custom screens while AA is running? Is there some functionality there that I'm missing that makes the downsides worthwhile?
Damn shame Google can't improve this product, but it really does not seem to have improved much at all over the years.