At WWDC this week, Apple unveiled updates to CarPlay in iOS 26, including the addition of Live Activities and widgets. These features provide drivers with glanceable, timely information without needing to open apps or handle their phones.
This approach echoes the original Android Auto experience from 2014, which prioritized simplicity and proactive information delivery. Early Android Auto offered quick access to navigation, calls, and music through a bottom bar, with a home screen powered by Google Now that displayed minimized directions, weather, calendar events, and more.
However, in 2019 Google shifted Android Auto towards an app-focused model, moving away from the proactive, glanceable design it first introduced. The current Android Auto experience now resembles Apple’s approach more closely.
The new CarPlay features revisit those older Android Auto concepts, updating them for the current mobile environment. Google’s original design was ahead of its time, and many feel the company has repeatedly abandoned innovative ideas only for Apple to adopt and refine them later.
While Android Auto still includes some proactive elements, such as calendar-based address suggestions, such features remain limited. Widgets and Live Activities in CarPlay represent a natural evolution that Android Auto might benefit from adopting again in its own way.
For now, the industry appears to be cycling through similar design philosophies, with Apple currently embracing ideas reminiscent of Android Auto’s early vision.