Music lovers aren't happy with Android Auto's refreshed interface
TL;DR Google recently refreshed the Android Auto interface using Material You to match colors with your phone's wallpaper.
As part of the changes, the music player interface now uses wallpaper colors instead of album art and has smaller album art.
Some users find the new design bland and unbalanced, compared to the previous dynamic album art backgrounds.
Just last week, Google updated Android Auto's head unit interface with Material You, letting your car's display match the wallpaper on your Android phone. While the move is generally positive, especially for an interface that barely sees any wholesale UI refreshes, some users are strongly disliking the change.
Reddit user Adil15101 highlighted that in Android Auto's new and updated interface, music player interfaces now adopt the color from your wallpaper instead of the album art. The update also slightly refreshes the music player interface, with the seekbar now positioned right next to the even-smaller album art, giving us a lot more blank space in certain parts of the interface.
In the above composite photo, the image at the top shows the older interface, while the image at the bottom shows the newer interface.
The refreshed interface for Android Auto music players is a visual downgrade. While matching the UI to the wallpaper brings consistency across the car head unit interface, users lose out on the more exciting backgrounds that they have been used to with music players. Moving the seekbar makes sense since you can't accidentally tap on it when reaching for a button now, but it also gives us a very unbalanced UI with cramped spots between lots of empty spaces.
Shrinking the album art also makes little sense when there is so much blank space. Reddit user flcinusa complains about it too since their car has a portrait screen, where the album art is comically tiny.
Have you received the refreshed interface on Android Auto? Do you like the changes? Is there something you don't like? Vote below and let us know more in the comments!
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