Good news! Cars with Android Automotive and Google Built-in are about to get many more apps

Google is working on greatly expanding the app library on Android Automotive. At the ongoing I/O 2024 conference, Google announced that new streaming apps like Max and Peacock, and gaming apps like Angry Birds are headed to select cars with Google Built-in.

These are different from Android Auto-enabled cars, of which there are now over 200 million vehicles, according to Google. Instead, vehicles with Android Automotive with Google Built-in come preloaded with Google apps. Android Auto requires an Android phone, while Google Built-in doesn’t.

Besides adding the aforementioned apps to Google Built-in cars, the company is also collaborating with car manufacturers on its car-ready mobile apps program. The program aims to bring mobile apps to cars with no additional work for developers.

As part of the program, Google will automatically distribute mobile apps compatible with larger screens on cars with Android Automotive dashboards. This way, developers won’t have to create a whole new app for cars.

The app expansion program will start in the next few months with parked app categories like video, gaming, and browsers and expand to other app categories in the future. So, as a consumer, it could be a while before you start seeing the fruits of the program and more apps come to Android Automotive.