C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has announced support for Android Auto incident reports within Maps, finally.
- However, it is only available in India, at least for now.
- Hopefully, it will make its way to the US soon, as it has been a highly requested feature for years.
Android Auto is a terrific tool for using your phone’s features safely while you drive. With Android Auto, you can initiate navigation, send text messages, listen to music, and make phone calls without ever needing to remove your hands from the steering wheel or look over at your car’s infotainment display.
However, one feature that’s been notably absent from Android Auto has been the ability to send incident reports within Google Maps. Although Waze supports this (which is also a Google product), the Android Auto interface of Maps does not. In order to send an incident report in Maps, you need to use the phone app, which is obviously very dangerous while driving. Hence, most people don’t do it. For years now, this has been one of the most-requested features missing from Android Auto.
Today, though, we have some semi-good news. Google is finally rolling out this feature, but only in India for whatever reason. This will enable Android Auto users in India not to need to touch their phones when letting other Maps users know about construction, road hazards, etc.
This feature comes with a slew of other India-centric updates for Maps both on its own and in Android Auto.
To add insult to injury, Google Maps within Apple CarPlay also supports incident reports, even in the US. Why are you leaving us out in the cold, Google?
The silver lining, though, is that if this is rolling out in India today, then it will almost certainly roll out in the US eventually. When that would be, though, is anyone’s guess.
