The first Android Auto head units are available now and if you’re lucky enough you just might have one installed in your car right now. If so, today’s tutorial will show you how to enable the Android Auto Developer Mode.
Developer Mode in Android is a way to get a little more control out of your smartphone, tablet or smartwatch. If you’re running CM12, then you might want to enable Developer Mode to turn on root access. In stock Android builds you might want to enable Developer Mode to turn on USB Debugging Mode or modify/disable the animations.
There’s all sort of things you can tweak/enable/disable in the Developer Options sub-menu.
With the release of Android Auto head units, we have recently learned that there is a separate Developer Mode for those units. Instead of enabling them on the actual head unit itself though, you enable the Developer Mode directly from the companion application itself. If you haven’t downloaded the Android Auto companion app just yet, it will be linked in the tutorial listed below.
So, let’s talk about how to enable the Developer Mode on your brand new Android Auto head unit. . .
Android Auto Developer Mode
- Download and Launch the Android Auto Companion Application
- Tap on the Big Image at the Top Over and Over Again(10 times I think)
- Continue Tapping the Image Until You See a Message That Says ‘Developer Mode Enabled’
- Tap on the Overflow Menu at the Top Right
Explanation
So go ahead and download the Android Auto Companion application from the Google Play Store. Once it has been installed, tap on the icon to launch it. When you open up the application you will see a header image at the top, some safety and legal information below it and then some basic settings. Tap on the big header image at the top multiple times until you see the toast message tell you that the Developer Mode has been enabled. Once you see this, you can stop tapping on that header image.
Next, you’ll want to look up at the top right of the application and then tap on the three-dot menu that you see at the top left to expand the overflow menu. From here, you’ll see a new option called Developer Settings that you can tap to bring you into the Developer Mode options. This new page is filled with all sorts of optional settings like collecting GPS data, saving video, sharing a screenshot, the ability to skip the disclaimer and more.
Have you had a chance to get an Android Auto head unit installed in your car? Have you had a chance to even try out Android Auto yet? If you have, let me know what you think of it because I haven’t had the pleasure of trying it out just yet.
