Trying out CarPlay (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

I don’t see a dedicated CarPlay thread on the forum. So I thought I’d post this here. If there is a dedicated CarPlay thread, apologies.

Yesterday Apple Announced CarPlay Ultra.

Apple Says These Vehicle Brands Plan to Offer All-New CarPlay Ultra

Apple today announced the launch of CarPlay Ultra, the long-awaited next-generation version of its CarPlay software system for vehicles. CarPlay...

www.macrumors.com

As I have an older car (which I really love) with an aftermarket headunit that has CarPlay, I’ll have to buy a new car to enjoy this. . But not in my immediate plans. I’ll carryon with the older system.

You posted to the right place.

Been reading about this CarPlay Ultra. However, for most of us, nothing to get excited about right now. It's only rolling out in select vehicles.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Ron!

 

[DaveF]

I like CarPlay a lot: for me it’s the best solution out there for connecting my iphone to a car with the apps I use and how i manage navigation. This is multiplied for me because I drive rental cars routinely and it makes dealing with them much easier compared to before CarPlay.

And because my car is a dumb car with only the typical Bluetooth connection from 2016, I bought a dash-mounted CarPlay accessory, which on the whole was money well spent.

I’ve a lover, not a hater.

That said: CarPlay Ultra looks like a grave disappointment. The CarPlay UI is so dated with the bubble-round slides and boxes. The rainbow coloring of all the interfaces and apps and icons are a total clash with the design of every car out there.

It’s 2025. It’s yeas since the Apple Car was canceled, much less the decade prior working its design. It’s years since CarPlay Ultra nee CarPlay 2 (?) was original announced and then seemingly abandoned or rejected by all automakers. CarPlay has been stagnant in design and UX thinking this whole time.

And now the big launch shows the same style design coupled with an equally stale “Ultra” moniker.

A while back I thought there could be benefit in waiting for this before buying a new car. Now, I don’t see any customer benefits. It’s fine, it’s CarPlay. But it’s like the AppleTV: it’s seemingly on life support with no new ideas or improvements the past five or more years.

 

[Clinton McClure]

CarPlay is perfectly fine as is. I’d much rather automakers design all their UI to look like LCARS.

 

[DaveF]

This week’s VergeCast talks CarPlay, about 50 minutes in. Some history on the launch of next-gen CarPlay I’d missed previously.

HBO’s no good very bad rebrand

On The Vergecast: Streaming name disasters, CarPlay questions, and Android colors.

www.theverge.com

 

[DaveF]

Great overview of the CarPlay implementation on the Astin Martin.

 

[DaveF]

I'm hoping the iOS redesign will bring an updated design to CarPlay.

 

[Nelson Au]

Just wanted to post about something I’ve been doing with Apple Maps that works pretty well. Each year, I join a modern home tour from a company that puts these events on. It’s held in several states. The idea is home owners who’ve had recent renovations done with mid century modern homes or new homes in the modern style are open to visitors to see the house, meet the architect if there and contractors who built the homes. It’s self directed tour and attracts a lot of visitors. I went on this year’s tour yesterday.

When I get the address for each house. I usually plot a course for the houses from furthest away to closet to my home. I’ll create a Guide in Apple Maps by adding each house’s address and number them. So all I have to do is open the maps app and selected the house I want to go to in the guide and drive there. Then when I get in the car to go to the next house, I select the next house on my guide. Works out pretty well.

It occurred to me to do this kind of thing in the past, we’d need a paper map and maybe a companion to come along and be a navigator. Using the maps app navigation is a great help! It makes it a more fun day.

 

[DaveF]

I pretty much agree or resonate with all of this. But I was especially happy to see this critique since I thought it was just me:

Organizing the apps displayed on CarPlay could also be improved. Right now, this is accomplished by using the Settings app to reorder the list of apps on a per-vehicle basis, but the vertical list offered in Settings doesn’t match how those items are displayed in their icon grid in the car! Since the settings are per-vehicle, Apple knows the exact dimensions of the screen, so it knows how many rows and columns there are, and where the page breaks will be. It should also be easier to sync these layouts across devices. I’m not a current Apple Music subscriber, but it’s the second app in any default CarPlay homescreen, and there’s nothing I can do to prevent that from appearing in every rental car I connect to my phone.

I drive rentals about monthly. And having to configure CarPlay every single time, and with a configuration screen that doesn’t match the car’s on-screen layout, is always annoying. I want to set a CarPlay configuration and have that automatically apply to every car I use ever.

To improve CarPlay Ultra, Apple needs to fix CarPlay – Six Colors

Six Colors by Jason Snell, Dan Moren and friends

sixcolors.com

 

[DaveF]

Apple and CarPlay increasingly on their back foot

These Apple CarPlay Ultra Partners Now Say They Won't Support It

Apple is facing mounting resistance from automakers over CarPlay Ultra, the next-generation version of its CarPlay software system for vehicles that...

www.macrumors.com

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Mixed feelings on CarPlay Ultra

Sure, I would love to own a vehicle that supports it. Only high-end vehicles, for the moment are.

At the same time, I can see why some manufacturers aren't interested. They would rather push their own software and even charge drivers for its usage.

On the other hand, I think at one point, if I remember correctly, BMW charged people to use CarPlay.

Hard to say what the thinking is on the manufacturer's end other than they may see a complete Apple takeover of their software system as a threat and they would like to keep all of that functionality under their umbrella.

 

[DaveF]

I don’t care about ultra in that it’s irrelevant to me for the foreseeable future. I’m not shopping for an Aston Martin or other ultra car. And the timeline tha Hyundai would bring it to market is unknowable.

I really want some upgrades and updates to CarPlay. It’s still good, I’m using it daily in my new car. But it’s getting dated.

It’s still designed for old, small screens. It needs a Split View for big screens: map on left/top and music on right/bottom.

 

[DaveF]

Looking at Apples behavior lately, I think the way guess is that car makers assume Apple wants to get everyone hooked on CarPlay deeply integrated into their cars, then crank up the costs and squeeze them for every dollar possible. Car makers are rightly wary.

Also, cars are becoming the new smartphone. They’re jumping forward every couple years in new features and capabilities. Car makers have to control their own stack, as Apple has demonstrated. They’re jumping forward can’t outsource key software design and be competitive long term.

That’s my guess at motivations.

 

[John Dirk]

IOS 26 [that's right, Apple is skipping 19 and aligning the next major release with the year] will feature an enhanced version of Carplay for all currently supported vehicles. It's in developer beta now and should release to public beta mid-July. I hear there will finally be a weather app, which I would love to see.

 

[DaveF]

What I saw from WWDC video, the updates were all minor and not what the big improvements I think CarPlay needs.

Hopefully it is more than I appreciated.

 

[John Dirk]

What I saw from WWDC video, the updates were all minor and not what the big improvements I think CarPlay needs.

Hopefully it is more than I appreciated.

I guess it all depends on what matters most to you. I've been wanting a weather app in Carplay forever so, for me, that's not exactly "minor." Enhanced access to "smart home" devices is also something I'm excited about. As it stands, I only have a couple of Homekit-compatible devices. Better car integration might compel me to invest more heavily in Apple's solutions.

Curious what you'd like to see..

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I guess it all depends on what matters most to you. I've been wanting a weather app in Carplay forever so, for me, that's not exactly "minor." Enhanced access to "smart home" devices is also something I'm excited about. As it stands, I only have a couple of Homekit-compatible devices. Better car integration might compel me to invest more heavily in Apple's solutions.

Curious what you'd like to see..

I think they did more than minor updates.

They streamlined the incoming phone calls and messages so that it doesn't block the entire screen.

They introduced widgets which give you a quick glance at needed information including, best of all, LIVE ACTIVITIES.

You can airplay content to the screen while the car is not in motion

More customization


It's still a feature that is continually evolving but I would say that after what I feel were a few years of neglect, Apple has finally given more love to CarPlay than they previously have.

 

[DaveF]

I guess it all depends on what matters most to you. I've been wanting a weather app in Carplay forever so, for me, that's not exactly "minor." Enhanced access to "smart home" devices is also something I'm excited about. As it stands, I only have a couple of Homekit-compatible devices. Better car integration might compel me to invest more heavily in Apple's solutions.

Curious what you'd like to see..

It’s still designed for old, small screens. It needs a Split View for big screens: map on left/top and music on right/bottom.

 

[DaveF]

I think they did more than minor updates.

They streamlined the incoming phone calls and messages so that it doesn't block the entire screen.

They introduced widgets which give you a quick glance at needed information including, best of all, LIVE ACTIVITIES.

You can airplay content to the screen while the car is not in motion

More customization


It's still a feature that is continually evolving but I would say that after what I feel were a few years of neglect, Apple has finally given more love to CarPlay than they previously have.

Maybe I'll feel differently when I have it in action. But off hand, none of that is useful to me.

When I'm driving I need two things: Map and Audio.

I certainly don't need live activities giving updates of sports scores or whatever.

More generally, I want to have two large things on screen at once. I don't like the carving up into multiple tiny things, none of which give useful information alone.

I also want CarPlay to be smarter. Currently it shows a Calendar event for the place I am currently driving to. This is dumb. It shouldn't waste space on a calendar notice that I'm currently en route to. Another space is taken up by map direction that could instead be on the map itself. All that space should instead be given to a second split-screen item. I want that to be audio control (Music, Podcast, Book, whatever). Others might want Weather there or maybe some sort of live update, maybe flight information for someone they're driving to the airport to pick up. But overall, a more thoughtful and smarter consolidation and display of information instead of the tiny widgets they've had and seem to be doing more of.

 

[Robert Saccone]

I think they did more than minor updates.

They streamlined the incoming phone calls and messages so that it doesn't block the entire screen.

They introduced widgets which give you a quick glance at needed information including, best of all, LIVE ACTIVITIES.

You can airplay content to the screen while the car is not in motion

More customization


It's still a feature that is continually evolving but I would say that after what I feel were a few years of neglect, Apple has finally given more love to CarPlay than they previously have.

Widgets and LAs are what I am most excited about.