Earlier this year, Google introduced the likes of Android Auto to the world at their annual developers conference, Google I/O. On some levels, it will be a revolutionary way to interact with stuff while in the vehicle, but at the same time it should just make the things that we can already do from inside our automobiles that much more accessible. Google has plenty of partners at this point for the Android Auto platform, GM being one of those partners, with vehicles from some manufacturers said to be hitting the market by the very end of this year in certain regions. General Motors is also planning on launching their very own Android based in car platform though, called the Android Infotainment System which we could only guess would do much of the same stuff.
General Motors covers a number of different vehicle brands nationally and internationally, so it’s likely that they could end up partnering with Google for the Android Auto system in some of their brands while placing their own Android Infotainment system in others. GM is said to be introducing this platform into vehicles sometime in the year 2016, so it’s still a ways out before Android Auto has any competition from GM’s own in-house setup. The Infotainment system is part of a partnership deal with Harman International, which seeks to bring a skinned version of Android to the in dash consoles on future GM vehicles.
While both Android Auto and GM’s upcoming Android Infotainment System will be great advancements in vehicle technology, what GM is doing is essentially loading in a full version of Android into the dash. We don’t have to tell you what kind of benefits that brings over something like Android Auto which needs to be connected to your device for it to deliver its functionality. Although GM is partnering with Harman International to bring the system to their vehicles first come 2016, eventually the system won’t be limited to just GM vehicles, which would certainly open even more possibilities for Harman, and more possibilities for the consumer looking into buying a new car. With GM’s own Android based infotainment system in development and on the way, they seem to have their hand in just about every possible in-car OS you could think of, having partnerships with both Google and Apple as well as other brands like Blackberry. Would you prefer a full in-dash version of Android over Android Auto?