Android Auto might soon get smarter about disabling autoplaying music (APK teardown)

Android Auto seamlessly connects to your Android phone, allowing you to access your apps, play audio, communicate hands-free, and more on your in-car entertainment system. One nifty Android Auto feature is the ability to automatically play your phone’s audio. This can be disabled via settings, but it looks like Google is also working on an alternative solution.

We dug into a recent version of the Android Auto app (version 16.6.161344) and managed to enable a new autoplay notification. This notification will prompt you to turn off autoplay if you frequently pause automatic audio playback in Android Auto. Check out our screenshots below.

There seem to be a couple of triggers for this notification. For one, you’ll need to pause autoplaying music three times. Furthermore, you’ll need to pause the music within 10 seconds of it autoplaying. Pauses after 10 seconds don’t count toward the three-pause threshold.

This seems like a welcome addition, as some people might not realize you can disable autoplaying audio in Android Auto. So a proactive notification could make life easier for these users. We’re not sure when this option will be available to users, but our fingers are crossed for an imminent release.

This isn’t the only notable Android Auto feature spotted in recent days. Users recently uncovered YouTube playback controls, while Google rolled out redesigned media playback controls last week. It hasn’t been plain sailing for the platform, though, as Pixel and Samsung phone owners reported major Android Auto problems a few days ago. Thankfully, Google quickly rolled out a fix for this problem after it made headlines.