In a classic case of “Google kills a thing you might be relying on daily,” the company recently included Assistant Driving Mode — the one-time replacement for Android Auto on phone screens that lost some serious functionality back in 2022 — on alist of soon-to-be depreciated features. A new banner confirmed as much, warning drivers that “view” would be disappearing in February. A new explanation from Google explains the specific language used for Assistant Driving Mode, but the company’s backtrack doesn’t exactlyspare its car-friendly UI from death.
Google reached out to the folks at9to5Googleto explain that Assistant Driving Mode wasn’tactuallydying — it was just losing any of the functionality that matters. Essentially, over a year after thedashboard display disappeared from Driving Mode, users will now lose access to the app launcher found within Maps.Thatwas the view Google’s warning was speaking on, not the entire overall service.
However, just because Google’s spin keeps the Assistant Driving Mode name in use doesn’t mean it’s not dead. With this change set for February 7th, Google Maps will now just sport media controls with an Assistant shortcut. Maps had amedia playback bar well beforeAndroid Auto for phone screens was killed off, leaving the microphone button the only addition left from this experiment. Frankly, I don’t think that’s enough left to continue referring to this UI by its previous name, and I don’t think anyone else should either.
Assistant Driving Mode’s dashboard, which died in 2022.
Frankly, this feels like a move in place, at least in part, to counteract the narrative that Google can’t stop killing off services. Over the past five years, we’ve seen no shortage of four variations on car-friendly Android UIs — Android Auto for phone screens,Assistant Driving Mode’s original concept, Assistant Driving Mode’sactualconcept, and the dashboard-free variant that has been around since late 2022. Google simply cannot decide on how drivers should interact with content on their phone in older vehicles that lack Android Auto support, a problem that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon.
The fact of the matter is, in just a week’s time, Android users who rely on this previously pared-down version of Assistant Driving Mode will have even less functionality than before. Keeping the name of a service around simply to refer to a shortcut found in Maps doesn’t change the fact that this UI is effectively dead. It’s unclear if Google plans to work on a new iteration of car-friendly displays for Android, but it seems unlikely. With the shift to focusing onAndroid Auto and Automotive, it seems like Google might just leave older vehicles — and their drivers — behind.
