Andy Walker / Android Authority
TL; Dr
- Samsung developed a characteristic referred to as location-based navigation that scans your messages for places and allows you to shortly begin navigating to these locations out of your automobile display.
- This characteristic is accessible in Samsung Auto, which is Samsung’s model of Android Auto obtainable within the Chinese language model of One UI.
- Android Auto at the moment doesn’t supply an equal characteristic, however we argue it ought to for security causes.
Android Auto is one in every of Android’s finest options, because it helps you to safely entry lots of your cellphone’s options when you’re driving. It’s not the one cellphone projection implementation, although. In China, the place Android Auto isn’t obtainable, Samsung provides its personal model referred to as Samsung Auto. Samsung Auto provides most of the similar capabilities as Android Auto, nevertheless it has one neat characteristic that we’d like Google to repeat: location-based navigation.
Most individuals enter a vacation spot earlier than driving, however typically, drivers should change locations mid-drive. This might occur for a number of causes, however when it does, inputting the brand new vacation spot may be troublesome with out pulling over. Though it’s potential to alter locations whereas driving, Android Auto solely permits voice enter whereas driving. The brand new vacation spot could have an tackle that’s arduous to say or require disambiguation within the case of companies, forcing drivers to briefly take their eyes off the street to decide on the best location on the automobile display. Selecting up your cellphone and manually typing the brand new tackle right into a navigation app is extremely harmful to do whereas driving.
Samsung’s location-based navigation characteristic solves this situation by scanning incoming messages for places and offering an choice to alter the vacation spot on the automobile display. Once you obtain a message that accommodates location data, Samsung Auto will show a notification with a button to navigate to the situation.
That is helpful when somebody messages a brand new location after you’ve already began driving. As a substitute of listening to or studying the message to get the brand new tackle, which you then should manually set as your new vacation spot, you simply faucet a button within the notification proven in your automobile display.
Once I first realized about this characteristic, I used to be stunned by how easy but intelligent it’s. Most Android telephones already course of notifications to extract data like cellphone numbers, URLs, and addresses. That’s why notifications with them have good motion buttons that allow you to shortly place a name, open the hyperlink in an internet browser, or view the situation in Google Maps.
Android has lengthy proven these buttons on telephones, however the identical notifications on Android Auto don’t present them except you manually open the notifications panel. Even then, Android Auto solely reveals the navigation good motion when there’s solely a single message; if a contact sends you a number of messages, the good motion gained’t be proven.
There’s no purpose why this characteristic ought to solely exist in Samsung’s model of Android Auto. Google ought to shortly carry it to Android Auto for customers exterior of China, as it will make altering locations safer whereas driving.
