Media apps

Android for Cars offers two ways to co-create media browsing and playing experiences (such as for music, podcasts, and audio books) depending on the level of customization you need.

Figure 1. A sample media app experience created using Car App Library templates

1. MediaBrowserService (MBS): A done-for-you option, perfect for quickly creating a quality media app experience without customization.

2. Car App Library (CAL) templates: Customizable templates provide guardrails to help you bring the best of your media app to the car without starting from the beginning.

MediaBrowserService

If you'd like to create a basic media app with limited branding and customization, use MediaBrowserService. This is a lower-cost experience to let users browse content and play media.

Because the basic visual design and interaction model for much of the Android for Cars media experience is determined by Google and car makers, your role in design is mostly focused on:

• Creating a browsing structure for the content
• Supplying branding elements and icons for navigational tabs and custom controls (if needed)

Depending on your app, you may need to create additional flows, such as a sign-in flow or settings for the car screen (for AAOS) using the templates in CAL.

Car App Library templates

Car App Library templates allow for more in-app customization and flexibility to bring more features to your media app on Android Auto.

Beta: Templated media apps are a beta-release feature. You can publish templated media apps to internal and closed testing tracks on the Play Store, but not to open testing and production tracks. You may nominate yourself to become an early access partner.

The following templates in particular will help you create a great media experience:

• Sectioned item template: The sectioned item template lets you mix and match lists and grids to create a customized browsing structure. To get the latest updates and features, move any existing instances of the list or grid templates into the sectioned item template.

• Media Playback template: The media playback template lets you decide which actions can be performed from the playback screen. You can choose which buttons to show in the search results section and which playback buttons and images to show (provided through media session).

• Sign-in template: The sign-in template presents options for signing in to the app while parked.

• Tab template: The tab template acts as a container for other templates, providing tabs across the top.

Note: Media apps for the car feature audio content, rather than video, to help users focus on the road. For video experiences, see Parked and passenger apps.

Figure 2. Sectioned item template

Figure 3. Media playback template

Get started

To learn how to use the templates in CAL, see Build apps with templates.

Examples

For a closer look at the media experience in Android Auto, see Android Auto > Media apps. To see how the experience works in cars with Google built-in, see Automotive OS > Media apps.

Note: For technical details about how to build this experience, see Build media apps for cars.

UX requirements

Media apps need to meet the Media app requirements.