Headless and headful
The Spotify build that has shipped in Android Automotive cars since 2021 is headless. Spotify supplies the catalogue, the playlists and the account; Google supplies the layout through a media template that every music app has to fit. The new app is headful, which means Spotify draws the screen itself.
"We're drawing all the pixels," Jonathan Tarlton, Spotify's automotive business development lead, told The Verge. "We own the user experience. So we're not in a template or a framework. It's 100 percent Spotify."
What the extra freedom buys
On the A6 e-tron and Q6 e-tron, the app can use the passenger display for lyrics while the car is moving. A QR code shown on that screen lets the passenger join a shared listening session and push tracks into the queue. The centre display can also play video and show lyrics, but the picture stops once the car is in motion and only audio keeps running. Voice control goes through the car's own assistant, so "Hey Audi" handles skipping and volume.
Installation happens in the car. Owners open the Audi Application Store on the infotainment system and install or update the app there. A phone is needed once, to scan an on-screen QR code and sign in; after that the app runs on the car's own data connection, not the phone's.
Data volume on a normal drive
That last point matters more than it sounds. A native app streams over the car's SIM, so the megabytes land on whatever data plan the vehicle uses. Spotify's published bitrates are 96 kbps at normal quality, 160 kbps at high and 320 kbps at very high. Converted, that is roughly 43 MB, 72 MB and 144 MB per hour of playback.
A Prague–Vienna run of about three hours uses around 130 MB at normal quality, or roughly 430 MB at very high. A commuter doing 40 minutes each way, 20 days a month, spends a bit over 26 hours a month in the car: about 1.1 GB at normal quality, about 3.8 GB at very high. Our range calculator will not help with that, but the quality setting in the app will.
Which cars get it
Both launch models sit on the PPE platform and use Audi's E3 1.2 electronics architecture, which is what allows an app store inside the car in the first place. InsideEVs reports the rollout covers the A6 e-tron and Q6 e-tron worldwide. Store content and in-car data tariffs differ by market, so the app appearing in the German or Czech store does not automatically mean a free data allowance comes with it.
How it compares
Tesla has shipped its own Spotify app inside its own operating system for years, with no Google template in the way, and Polestar, Volvo and Renault run Android Automotive with the templated version that looks the same in every brand. Audi owners are the first in that Google-based group to get a screen designed by Spotify rather than by Google's guidelines. The price of that freedom is fragmentation: Spotify now has to maintain a separate interface per carmaker instead of one build for everyone.
Chinese brands take a third route, fitting large central screens with their own app stores, as with the BYD Danza D9 and Z9 GT with 115 kWh batteries and 850 kW charging. The car screen is turning into an app platform, the same shift the charging business went through when Source opened its UK ultra-rapid hubs to more than 100 provider apps through GreenFlux roaming.
What to do with this
If you drive an A6 e-tron or Q6 e-tron, check the Application Store in the car rather than waiting for an over-the-air notification. Set streaming quality deliberately: the difference between normal and very high is more than threefold in data, and in a car with a modest bundled plan that gap is what empties it. Do not expect video or scrolling lyrics on the move; they are blocked once the car rolls, which leaves charging stops as the moment the passenger screen earns its place. Our charging station map and the list of cheapest ultra-rapid sites are the places to plan those stops.
Spotify says it remains invested in CarPlay and Android Auto, so the phone route is not going away. Which other brands get the headful app, and when, has not been announced.
Source: https://insideevs.com/news/812853/spotify-new-in-car-app-audi/