{"id":274485,"date":"2026-06-16T09:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/16\/3-unofficial-android-auto-apps-i-installed-to-make-my-car-screen-more-useful-and-how\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T10:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T14:35:09","slug":"3-unofficial-android-auto-apps-i-installed-to-make-my-car-screen-more-useful-and-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/16\/3-unofficial-android-auto-apps-i-installed-to-make-my-car-screen-more-useful-and-how\/","title":{"rendered":"3 unofficial Android Auto apps I installed to make my car screen more useful &#8211; and how"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/3-of-my-favorite-sideloaded-android-auto-apps\/\">3 unofficial Android Auto apps I installed to make my car screen more useful &#8211; and how<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/3-of-my-favorite-sideloaded-android-auto-apps\/\">https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/3-of-my-favorite-sideloaded-android-auto-apps\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-16 09:59:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.zdnet.com\">www.zdnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>    <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall u-block\">Artie Beaty\/ZDNET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Follow ZDNET:\u00a0<span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>Add us as a preferred source<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on Google.<\/p>\n<h3>ZDNET&#8217;s key takeaways<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>You can sideload Android Auto apps to add functionality.<\/li>\n<li>There are apps for watching YouTube, browsing the web, and more.<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;ll need to enable developer mode to install the apps.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Android Auto does a lot of things well, but it&#8217;s a little limited. Scrolling through the Android Auto section of the Google Play Store, I find a decent, but not huge, catalog of apps. Google places hard limits on what it wants your car&#8217;s screen to do, yet Android Auto is capable of so much more. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This is where sideloading comes in, or installing unofficial apps from sources outside of the official Play Store. These apps significantly expand what Android Auto can do (you can sideload apps to your phone, too), and the process isn&#8217;t difficult.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: How I customized my Android Auto in 7 ways to make it more useful when I&#8217;m driving<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My car is a 2018 model, so the infotainment screen isn&#8217;t as huge as in more modern cars. But even on a smaller screen, apps can change how I use Android Auto, including watching videos, browsing the web, and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how to sideload apps, plus three of my favorite apps I&#8217;ve added to Android Auto.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>How to sideload apps on Android Auto<\/h2>\n<p>To set up these apps for the first time, you will need to go through several steps. Once you&#8217;re set up, though, you&#8217;ll use the tools the same as any other Android Auto software.<\/p>\n<p>First, you&#8217;ll need to unlock developer mode on your phone. To do this, open your Settings app and find the About Phone section. Look for Build Number and tap it seven times.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also:\u00a06 Android Auto apps I wish I found sooner, because they make every drive easier<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Second, you&#8217;ll need to unlock developer mode for Android Auto. This step is much the same &#8212; go to Settings, search for Android Auto, tap it, and choose &#8220;Additional settings in the app.&#8221; Scroll down until you see Version, then tap it 10 times. From there, scroll down in your settings until you see &#8220;Unknown&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/3-of-my-favorite-sideloaded-android-auto-apps\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>3 unofficial Android Auto apps I installed to make my car screen more useful &#8211;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":274486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/f5ef8c94aa384a5c29a4f9b5bc235f3f599bc0b2\/2026\/06\/15\/3e93031a-19ae-4eef-a689-231238cbb72c\/pxl-20260615-180712691.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-274485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","tag-google"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274487,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274485\/revisions\/274487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}