Android Auto 13.8 Update Now Rolling Out

After debuting in beta earlier this month, Google is now rolling out the Android Auto 13.8 update to users, but don’t expect many changes.

Android Auto updates arrive more or less on a monthly basis, with the latest v13.8 update appearing to be an overall minor patch. Google doesn’t provide an official changelog, but this update likely delivers various bug fixes behind the scenes among other tweaks.

In our brief testing, we’ve not noticed any direct user-facing changes with this latest update.

That said, there is some work behind the scenes.

About APK Insight: In this “APK Insight” post, we’ve decompiled the latest version of an application that Google uploaded to the Play Store. When we decompile these files (called APKs, in the case of Android apps), we’re able to see various lines of code within that hint at possible future features. Keep in mind that Google may or may not ever ship these features, and our interpretation of what they are may be imperfect. We’ll try to enable those that are closer to being finished, however, to show you how they’ll look in case that they do ship. With that in mind, read on.

In the code of Android Auto 13.8, we noticed further work on “new parked apps.” Google first started adding this language to the app in the v13.7 update that rolled out early this month.

We believe this to be related to Google’s efforts to bring more apps to Android Automotive and Android Auto, a program which bore its first fruits last week as Google announced support for “dozens” of new streaming and gaming apps for cares with Android Automotive. Google says on a developer page that this program will extend to Android Auto “at a later date.”

New strings in Android Auto 13.8 continue to build on this, with further additions for apps that work while the vehicle is parked.