Research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has found that both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are less distracting than various infotainment systems built into 10 model year 2017 and 2018 vehicles. The study compared how much attention various tasks require on each platform and found Android Auto's attention demand to be moderate, whereas overall demand of native systems was found to be very high.

Overall attention demand of native infotainment systems tested.

Each system was rated on how much attention was required to select music, make phone calls, send text messages, and navigate. Overall, automakers' systems were found to demand high or very high attention to complete all tasks. Android Auto demands very high attention when navigating and sending texts, the study found, but only moderate attention for other tasks.

Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, and native systems, compared.

The study involved 64 drivers between the ages of 21 and 36, who were monitored while performing instructed tasks on the different infotainment systems. "Automakers are experts at building safer cars, but Google and Apple are more skilled at building safer vehicle infotainment technology," AAA CEO Marshall Doney said.

You can check out the AAA's full report here.

Source: PR Newswire, AAA