Hands-on: Android Auto puts Google's in-dash experience on your phone (and, yes, it works)

Let me be almost recklessly honest: I allow my Android phone to distract me while driving. Sure, I stick to the Google Maps interface when I'm navigating somewhere, and try to avoid skipping through songs as I'm streaming music. But even with this level of quasi-carefulness, I could benefit from Google's plan to put Android Auto directly on smartphone screens, a new feature that I tested in my own car at Google HQ on Tuesday. Android Auto, first announced in 2014, was designed to keep Android users like me from fiddling around with our devices when we should really be paying attention to the road. The headline features include hands-free voice control for playing music, texting, making phone calls, and navigating via Google Maps.