Sanuj Bhatia / Android Authority
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TL;DR
- Google appears to be preparing a full-screen GameSnacks experience for Android Auto.
- The change removes the navigation rail from both the GameSnacks menu and games themselves.
- This would make GameSnacks more consistent with other Android Auto games, which already run in full screen.
Android Auto’s gaming push stepped up a gear this week, with Google officially moving games out of beta and making them generally available. But fans of gaming while parked up may have spotted one outstanding inconsistency: Regular Android Auto games can take over your whole car display, while GameSnacks leaves the navigation rail sitting alongside them. It looks like Google is preparing to fix that.
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In the latest Android Auto beta, we managed to activate a change that gives GameSnacks the same immersive treatment as other games. The navigation rail disappears from both the main GameSnacks screen and the games themselves, freeing up the full display.
That’s different from how GameSnacks works currently. Open the app today, and Android Auto’s navigation rail remains visible, and it sticks around once you’ve started playing a game. By comparison, a regular game such as Beach Buggy Racing already runs in full screen. You can swipe down from the top to reveal the back and Exit buttons, with Exit returning you to Android Auto’s app list.
The new GameSnacks interface we managed to activate means you get the full immersive treatment. Compare the screenshots above and below to see the difference pretty clearly. In the current Android Auto build, as shown above, the navigation rail on the side of the screen is visible. Below, you can see that the rail is gone in the test version, while swiping down gives you the Exit option.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
There is also a permanently visible back button on the screen in the version we activated, but it doesn’t currently work. Given that the usual controls are still available by swiping down, this looks more like a bug than an intentional part of the new design, and may be scrubbed by the time the change reaches a stable release.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
It’s not exactly a revolutionary upgrade, but if it makes it to a public release, GameSnacks should soon make considerably better use of all that dashboard screen space — just as Google is opening the category up more widely.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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