But despite
Android Auto becoming a more common feature behind the wheel, there was one major shortcoming: the app was only available in a limited number of countries, at least officially, so users couldn’t enable it in their cars regardless of the Android device they were using.
This is finally being addressed this week, as Google has announced the biggest expansion of Android Auto ever, with the company bringing the app to no less than 36 new countries.
In other words, Android Auto is now officially supported in a lot more regions, many of them in Europe, including Sweden, Belgium, Portugal, Netherlands, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia.
Furthermore, Google says it’s working to expand Android Auto outside of Europe too, so users in Angola and Botswana are going to receive the app in the coming months. Google customers in Thailand and Indonesia are also getting Android Auto officially, according to Google’s announcement.
Worth knowing, however, is the 36 countries added to the list won’t get Android Auto overnight, as the whole process happens gradually. So it’ll still take a while until Android Auto shows up in your local store (if you use an older Android device) or you can enable it on your smartphone if Android 10 or 11 is installed.
In the meantime, pretty much anyone can use Android Auto in their cars with nothing more than the stand-alone APK installer they can find here. Of course, this means they’re doing the whole thing unofficially, so support for Android Auto wouldn’t be offered in case something goes wrong, but with a little luck, everything would be flawless, and assistance wouldn’t be required.
Here’s the full list where Android Auto will go live as part of this expansion:
- Albania
- Angola
- Armenia
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Botswana
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- Greece
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Indonesia
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Malta
- Moldova
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Sweden
- Thailand
- Turkey
- Ukraine
