Brief notes on a session I attended at Droidcon.ke.

Benard Ngoda presented on Android Auto development, which made me want to tinker with Android app dev. Maybe.

There are two main Android platforms for cars.

Android Auto is a platform for writing Android apps that are installed, and run, on a mobile phone, but can export some element of the UI to the car head unit.

Automotive OS, on the other hand, is for apps that are installed directly on the head unit itself. This is, as far as I can tell, harder, because every auto manufacturer, as well as every after-market car head unit manufacturer, have their own custom spin/distribution of it.

Benard’s github repo has a bunch of sample code for getting started. Apparently the best IDE for doing this is Android Studio. It’s unclear to me if you must use Android Studio, but it seems that everyone does.