Spotify on Wednesday introduced a fully native in-car app built directly on Google's Android Automotive operating system, moving the streaming service beyond phone-based projection systems such as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The app launches today in select Audi models and runs on the vehicle's own infotainment hardware, so drivers no longer need to tether a phone, pair over Bluetooth, or use an aux cable.
The initial rollout covers several Audi vehicles, including the electric A6 e-tron and Q6 e-tron, along with the gas-powered A5, Q5, and A6. Jonathan Tarlton, Spotify's automotive business development lead, said the app has been in development for a little more than a year and is intended to give users a more inviting experience, one that Spotify controls entirely.
The new Audi application differs from Spotify's standard Android Automotive app, which operated as a so-called headless integration: Spotify supplied backend data, playlists, and its music catalog, but Google's templates determined how the interface was drawn and structured onscreen. The new app is headful, meaning Spotify renders its own native interface on the vehicle's screens from scratch. Tarlton said Spotify draws all the pixels and owns the user experience, describing it as 100 percent Spotify rather than something built inside a template or framework.
Tarlton said Spotify remains heavily invested in phone projection and is not abandoning CarPlay or Android Auto, but the native app is positioned to compete with phone mirroring, the default way many people listen to music and podcasts in their cars. He said the company wants to give users choice and reach them wherever they are, whether they use iOS or Android phones. He also said the native app reduces headaches associated with projection, such as waiting for a phone to connect or a screen to load during a cold start in the morning.
The native app adds features that projection does not offer. Passengers can scan a QR code on the screen to join a wireless Spotify Jam session and add songs to the queue from their smartphones, and on vehicles with a dedicated secondary passenger display, front passengers can browse, view lyrics, and watch video without disturbing the driver. While the vehicle is parked or charging, motion graphics such as video podcasts and lyrics move to the central display for everyone to see. Tarlton said the app aims to bring passengers together in the cabin again, at a time when parents often listen up front while kids wear headphones in back.
Spotify's rollout will focus on cars with Android-based operating systems, which lets the company avoid building separate apps for each automaker and instead distribute a standard Android Automotive APK through app stores, including the Google Play Store and proprietary automaker stores such as the Audi Application Store. Tarlton said the company's top goal was preventing fragmentation, for the sake of the whole industry as well as Spotify, and that it believes the car is a strong place for an open and fair app ecosystem.
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