"Car Mode" sounds promising, right?
In actuality, Astell&Kern's Car Mode amounts to a horizontal or vertical layout for the music player, creating larger and more manageable controls. Enlarging the play/pause, back and forward buttons, the layout transforms into a driver-friendly design much like Android Auto and Apple CarPlay does for your connected devices .
Officially, Astell&Kern Digital Audio Players are not compatible or optimized for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Despite Astell&Kern's players running on an Android operating system, the device has not been made to integrate into Android Auto like other Android devices have been developed to work with car systems. Why have Astell&Kern DAPs not been optimized for car systems? We're not sure, but that doesn't mean that they won't work with your car's audio.
The fact is that Astell&Kern DAP music players do one thing and they do it well: play music. Android Auto and Apple CarPlay compatible infotainment systems are designed to act as an extension of your phone and integrate various functions into your vehicles personalized control scheme.
Just because Astell&Kern hasn't officially made their devices optimized with Android Auto and Apple Car Play, doesn't mean that they won't have some functionality with the audio system. We won't get into the compatibility of the devices with different systems, since they vary so much by audio system and car manufacturer. The down side to all this is that you could have a vehicle that might integrate fairly well with your music player, whereas others might have one that hardly retains any functionality whatsoever. You'll ultimately need to test your own device with your vehicle.
