Android Auto, Google’s in-car interface, has been bumped to version 17.6.663424, and with it comes a small visual tweak: a new app icon that some users are already spotting. It’s a minor change on its face, but it looks a lot like the first visible sign of a wider redesign.
The road-and-arrow shape is still there, but the bright blue has shifted toward a greener Android shade, and the corners look softer and more rounded. It arrives ahead of a broader set of phased changes that Google has confirmed, even if it still hasn’t pinned them down by region, car brand, or head unit maker. Those updates are expected to lean on Google’s Material 3 Expressive style, with smoother animation, layouts that can bend a bit more, customizable widgets, and better support for wide, vertical, and circular screens. That would build on 2023’s Coolwalk split-screen overhaul for navigation, media, and messages, the update that made Android Auto feel less like a phone projection and more like something built for the car itself.
If you use Android Auto a lot, there’s plenty here to keep an eye on: immersive 3D Maps, deeper Google Gemini integration, EV battery and charging guidance, weather apps, video streaming, games while parked, PDF read-aloud support, mixed user reactions to voice reliability and more interface changes after Coolwalk, and a growing sense that the next major update isn’t far off. Android Auto is available on supported Android devices and in more than 250 million compatible cars across 46 countries, according to Google, though this icon rollout still seems slow and uneven.
