Android: The rollout of Android Auto is one of Google’s slowest, and you can’t use it unless you have a Lollipop phone and an expensive aftermarket head unit. If you’d rather skip the expensive car modifications, AutoMate can give you a similar dashboard experience with just your phone.
Inexplicably, Android Auto has not officially been released in a simple app form that any old phone in landscape mode could use. While AutoMate is not official in any way, it does many of the same things, including controlling your music player, getting directions and reading your texts aloud.
The app is currently in beta, so you’ll need to join the company’s Google+ community here and then sign up to be a beta tester here in order to download it. AutoMate is slightly less seamless than you might expect Android Auto proper to be (for example, it launches the Maps and music apps externally, rather than accessing those functions inside AutoMate itself), but the large buttons and fewer distractions should help drivers on the road.
AutoMate [Google+]
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