Google releases revamped Android Auto music player grid, and users are not happy At its core, the update features the Material You design language that allows the Android Auto music player to adopt your phone’s wallpaper color. In theory it does sound like a nice little upgrade, however as some users have mentioned the new design actually has usability and aesthetical drawbacks.
Back in the day, an Android Auto music player would show you a list of all the available albums and make use of the album art as its background, which animated differently for each track to provide a more colorful look for your auto playlist. But the latest update drops that idea in favor of simply using your Android phone’s wallpaper color scheme instead. That’s a squad of the Marfa Quarterly, and for digital music listeners who love gazing upon large album cover art while navigating through their libraries in said skin, this is a MAJOR step back.
Android Auto Music Player Gets Visual Downgrade with Material You
As per the reports and a few review from Reddit, now Android Auto music player comes with smaller Album Art and duller bland background. Comparing the current layout against previous design, the older one is more pleasant to the eye as it displays your album art on a Reddit user named Adil1501 image. This new iteration is especially jarring because it seems so disconnected and sterile now, which takes all the magic out of the experience for music lovers.
The repositioned seekbar and an awkward patch of empty space are not the only things users have complained about. The first noticeable change is that the seekbar is now directly below the timestamp and alongside the smaller album art.
However, this change also appears to introduce an apparent patch of empty space in the player, which is increasingly pronounced on bigger or portrait-oriented screens. As noted by Reddit user Ficinusa, the update looked even worse in portrait screens, where the album art got even smaller than before.
Instead of updating the seekbar balloon to reflect the changes or redesign the next song indicator, it seems even less optimized and less balanced. However, this leaves Android Auto users wondering if the music player is getting worse. It seems out of place for the music to not autoplay but to jump into Maps, especially in a car in continuous motion. The reality is most people still use Android Auto for more extensive album art and a cleaner design.
While Google must bring Material You across the board, especially for wallet and payment suite, this is an awful step back for a lot of Android Auto users. Although the need for the same interface throughout all devices is quite understood, it does not justify this particular change. This is the general reaction from the community:
FAQ
Google has also already updated it to match the Material You theme, which is how things are supposed to work here — the color scheme should in theory be tied nastily to your phone’s wallpaper.
As of now, there’s no straightforward way to reset or switch back the legacy album art design.
The album art now resizes accordingly in order to adjust to the repositioned seekbar as well as comply with the Material You look.
Some of the users believe it makes visual impairment and gives a space effect on controls, especially for portrait screens.
There is no word from Google officially, but the user backlash might force Google to revise the interface in upcoming updates.
