[Android Auto General] invertedskull:
There is no developer mode in the Android Auto app? Unless I'm missing something really obvious? Can you please post a screenshot or tell us where this option is exactly?

It's hard to answer that. It depends on the individual's own expectations. I kinda dived in head first cos I love exploring new Android devices. I hope Poweramp comes out with a new version soon that will work with AA, cos right now I have to use Google Play Music, which is not my favourite.

If you are interested in the ability to use voice commands to access your phone while driving, you don't need AA. If you want to play music on your phone in your car, you don't need AA. If you wanna save a bunch of money, I would not bother. For much less you can emulate a very similar experience, even without using the AA app. You just need a phone mount so your phone's screen is in view, the Google Now app so you can issue "OK Google" voice commands, and then either a car that has bluetooth or a car stereo with an AUX so you can play music from your phone.

EDIT: If you want to use voice commands ("OK Google") you can still avoid having to buy a new AA enabled head unit. Like I said, you just need the Google Now Launcher app. It integrates very well with Google Maps for navigation (so you can say "OK Google navigate to work" or "...navigate to *INSERT ADDRESS*"). It also integrates very well with Google Play Music (but not other music players so well).

So if you are using Google Play Music it's great to be able to tell it to play specific songs or albums. HOWEVER I do have a big gripe with this side of the coin. Using voice to play music is not always ideal. You might not think of the name of a band or artist you want to play, but maybe you know they start with the letter F or something... You NEED to browse and see your music library. Also, there are a LOT of musicians / artists with unusual names. Many use names that are made up or combinations of real words, phonetic spelling, or just words that are rarely used in the lexicon that Google may not have "indexed" them, etc... Here's some examples: Kyuss, YOB, Slomatics, Agalloch, Dopethrone, etc... These are all Metal bands. So not exactly mainstream. But a name like Beyonce is mainstream, so while it's an unusual name, Google would be well aware of it.

Another thing, many song titles and album names share the same name. This confuses Google. I recently wanted to play Metallica's third album, "Master of Puppets." It is also the name of track 2 on that album. So I said "OK Google play Metallica's album, Master of Puppets" and can you guess what it played? A cover version of the song by a TOTALLY DIFFERENT BAND! So that was frustrating. But more frustrating still is Google is NOT giving us the ability to browse our music library through the head unit. This is my biggest beef with the whole AA experience. I get the whole "safety" argument, but Apple Car Play allows this! To get around this there are other music apps that can work with AA. I've tried a few, hoping to find one that will allow music library browsing. doubletwist is one, and it WILL let you browse music through the head unit, but only when the car is in park. However, I had my car on, in reverse, foot on the brake, ready to back out of a car park. I wanted to browse some music first, but using doubletwist did not work because it detected I was not in park. So I put the car in park, and it still did not think I was in park. I turned the motor off, still didn't think I was in park. So I got rid of doubletwist. I hope this gets remedied soon, as had I known this limitation, I may not have bought an AA head unit.