Android Auto isn’t losing access to its game collection after all

Earlier this month, some Android Auto users noticed that they were no longer able to access the GameSnacks app. There’s now an update on this situation. We have also spotted a handful of changes coming to Android Auto through an APK teardown of the 15.5 beta build. We’ll quickly break down everything you need to know.

Starting with GameSnacks, there were several reports claiming that the app had gone missing from the in-car app list. While there was fear that the gaming app optimized for in-car displays was being deprecated, it turns out that’s not the case. Google has acknowledged the issue and a moderator in Android Auto forum says the issue has been fixed. To bring the app back, you’ll need to update your Android Auto app to the latest version (15.3 or above).

As mentioned earlier, we noticed some changes coming to Android Auto in our APK teardown of version 15.5 beta. One of the more notable changes will be the end of support for Android 8.0/8.1. While Google updated its support page in July last year to mention that Android Auto would require Android 9.0 or above, it continued to push updates that supported the older OS. Even the current Play Store listing still mentions that Android 8.0 is the minimum requirement. So it looks like this will be the end of the road for Android Oreo, for real this time.

Moving on to the next change, the settings section in Android Auto will look a little different. Currently, the page will show you four items at once. It looks like Google is putting a little more space between each item. As a result, you’ll only see three items at once instead of four.

Last but not least, we noticed something interesting about the app icon on the new media player UI. In the header of the media player sits the icon for the app. Depending on the accent of the song playing, the app icon will change to that color. This worked with Spotify, VLC player, and the Google News app. However, it didn’t work for YouTube Music.