Android Auto is working on support for AM, FM, and HD radio

While car radios used to be in a bad place with outdated UIs and clunky software that never got updated, things changed with the arrival of Android Auto, giving users the power to upgrade their head units, just by plugging up their existing phones. Since that time, many car manufacturers have adopted Android Auto into their products, giving users a great way to keep some consistency between their phones and their vehicles.

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What is Android Auto?

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And while Android Auto has made significant changes and added a ton of features over the years, the one thing that it still doesn’t offer is connectivity to traditional terrestrial radio broadcasts. Now, for most, music streaming services like Spotify and YouTube Music are a way of life, and this kind of connectivity is the last thing on peoples’ minds. But, just in case you ever wanted to, it looks like a future update could bring that type of functionality to Android Auto.

Most people won’t use it, but it’ll be nice to have

The folks at 9to5Google did some digging into the latest version of Android Auto and found some indications in the code that hint that this feature could be in the works. One of the biggest giveaways is that there is a line of code that shows support for “Car Radio” controls, which will apparently give the app the ability to control the built-in radio with options to switch from AM, FM and even HD Radio.

As far as what it will look like, the news outlet is unclear, as it has only been able to see code strings at this point. So how it will look when it arrives is really anyone’s guess. Again, while this might not be the most critical or highly requested feature by most Android Auto users, there are definitely a few good reasons to get this integrated into the UI, with safety being one of the top concerns.

With Google recently celebrating 10 years of Android Auto, one can only wonder how the platform will evolve over the next ten years, especially with AI coming to the forefront of many of Google’s software efforts. And as more auto manufacturers adopt Android Auto, things can really only get better from here. If you want to give it a try, download the app from the Google Play Store and check to make sure your current head unit supports the feature.