My experience is only with GM vehicles so I can’t say about other brands. I still use an iPhone 7 Plus and the bluetooth functions work well. I don’t recall changing any settings to allow a streaming app to work so I think it’s automatic depending on the vehicle’s capabilities.
I’m still not clear on what the actual issues are that you’re having with CarPlay, so it’s hard to know whether it’s a bad fit for your use or something not working as intended.
I don’t know what this means, because this isn’t what Apple expects or what’s necessary. CarPlay essentially ‘projects’ a UI into your car’s screen. CarPlay gets updated (sometimes in minor ways) with each iOS update. And when that happens, the updated CarPlay just works in existing cars with CarPlay support. I have seen this happen. So I’m not sure what you’re referring to with the statements about Apple requiring a new car to use a CarPlay upgrade.
1 Like
As with most others who have posted, I’m not aware of any incompatibilities between even the most recentest version of CarPlay and any CarPlay-compatible console systems. Basically any CarPlay-capable automobile I’ve ever been in fully supports whatever version of CarPlay my iDevice uses. At the moment, this includes a 2020 Toyota Prius and a 2023 Subaru Forester (most emphatically not a “gas-guzzler”).
Re: wanting to view more than one app at a time. This is entirely possible, and is my default! To view both navigation (whether Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Waze, all of which I’ve experimented with — or, presumably, other nav apps) and “Now playing” at the same time on even small infotainment displays, your CarPlay display should offer a three-way toggle, with icons much like the following; you’ll want the third option:
- ▢ — one app
- — list of apps
- — one main app (the nav app) and two or three others (including “Now Playing”)
After years of using the mount-the-iPhone-on-the-dash for navigation and plug-it-in-to-use-USB-for-audio, I will never again go back to that! CarPlay is not flawless (particularly via Bluetooth, when more than one iPhone enters the car), but it’s much easier to use (and view!) than that jury-rigged approach.
And I’ll never go back to an auto-maker’s nav system, that’s out-of-date before you even buy the car and costs $$$ to update. No matter whether you prefer Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze, or something else — it’s always far more up-to-date than whatever the auto-maker provides.
I’d have loved to have bought another GM car — all our cars when I was growing up were GM. From the ’90s through the ’10s, I’ve avoided them because they’ve required far more maintenance (time and $$$) than Toyotas, Hondas, and Subarus, and because they’ve generally gotten significantly worse gas mileage. I’d been hoping that they’d turn themselves around with their new EV push, but no CarPlay will mean that they’re a complete non-starter for our household.
3 Likes
When Apple demoed Carplay 2.0, it showed Carplay taking over all the car’s dashboard displays. Obviously, doing so would require Carplay to have more access to the car’s control system than Caplay 1.x has. I think the original poster is worried that when CaPlay 2.0 is introduced, it will require automakers to support this integration level to run. Since I doubt few automakers will cede this level of control, I’m pretty sure that some version of Carplay would continue to run with the current level of integration.
4 Likes
Ah, thanks that hadn’t occurred to me. I don’t think we should be criticising Apple for something they haven’t introduced or given details of yet. Like you I can’t imagine the original CarPlay being dropped when an expanded version is introduced.
1 Like
With some of latest updates to CarPlay Apple added some new and advanced features to the software. However in order to access these features you will need to purchase a new vehicle as the features are not available to most current vehicles and only less than a handful of some of the latest luxury level vehicles are the new features available.
As to actual issues, only if I connect the phone using a very specific order of steps does CarPlay connect with my Acura RDX. If I miss a step and do it later, redo it, without taking steps to turn off all the technology such as shutting off the engine and temporary leaving the car, will it connect again. Even with using the correcting procedure it sometimes fails to connect. Luckly I have found an undocumented method of resetting the vehicle technology from the console which is only documented for dealer service as it also runs dealer diagnostics.
Still with all of this done properly, most of the time it fails to upload navigation information to the chosen vehicle map on the vehicle display but instead telling me to find a notification on my phone and select it. This notification can appear, often with significant delay at various locations on the phone, such as the phone notification screen, Alexa, or the map app which requires me to search through various screens on my phone till I find it thus leading to severe distracted, and illegal driving. Neither Apple Support or Acura/Honda Support will address these issues and fix them.
Wow. I’m surprised you bother at all. With problems like that, I’d just give up and go back to a vent-mount and AUX input for music. I don’t have time to jump through all those hoops every time I get in the car to go somewhere.
Not surprising. My 2012 Civic has had problems with iPod support since I bought the car. Although it is mostly reliable with my iPod Touch, my Classic would frequently crash after 30-90 minutes of playback, forcing me to hard-reset it. (This crash only happens when paying audio via USB to a car).
Apple didn’t care - said it was Honda’s problem, even though it was the iPod that crashes. (This was even before they stopped selling the iPod Classic). Honda didn’t care - said they just install the software Apple gives them and have no ability to change anything. So the problem never got fixed, and never will.
Same problem (but even worse crashing) on my father’s car (a recent generation Chevrolet Impala).
Ironically, my wife’s Kia Sedona (both the 2018 we’re driving now and the 2012 it replaced) have great iPhone/iPod integration. But the USB port itself is physically flaky, so devices randomly disconnect, making it useless - so we’re back to USB audio and AUX input there too. (Kia can’t find anything wrong with the port, of course, and they want an insane amount of money to replace it.)
Re:David C. At this time I rarely use CarPlay around town but only for longer distance driving or driving during commute hours so I can be aware of congestion and find detours. When I works it works great. The issue is getting it to initially work. That said when I first purchased the car Acura support was outstanding. Now it is essentially garbage.
I hadn’t heard about these new features, but presumably they require hardware that’s not present in existing cars. I don’t blame Apple for this – at some point they’ll want to add features that aren’t possible with existing hardware. CarPlay is almost a decade old, and the current version runs on the first car that ever supported it. It doesn’t feel to me that Apple considers the car an accessory they expect you to upgrade every time there’s a new version of CarPlay.
(As a side note, do you know what these new and advanced features are that require a new vehicle?)
As far as the issues with your car, they do sound like a real pain, and would severely dent the attractiveness of CarPlay for me if I had them. From the description it sounds more like a problem with the car rather than CarPlay, but that’s not much comfort (and disappointing that Honda support aren’t taking it seriously). All I can say is whenever I use a car it’s a car club or rental, so I’ve used dozens of makes and models with CarPlay, and it’s worked reliably in all of them. Not to diminish how real the issue is for you, but to suggest that it might not be widespread amongst cars generally.
The OP might be referring to the 2.0 version of CarPlay which would more or less take over the whole dash:
I would think that GM as well as some other brands are not going to let that happen but maybe some will still provide the current CarPlay functions.
Thank you for your understanding. I feel you are partially correct. I believe it is a combination of issues. One is most certainly the vehicle when I comes to connectivity as demonstrated that when I reset the vehicle technology CarPlay reconnects. But the other issue is CarPlay itself on the phone as the lack of consistent operation when setting destinations with CarPlay and transmitting that information to the vehicle display via the chosen map app. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. When it does not, notifications are supposed to be present on the phone. Some times they are and sometimes they are not or are significantly delayed when they finally do. Additionally the location of the notification varies as sometimes they appear in the phone notification screen and sometimes in the map app. This seems to be totally inconsistent. When I add Alex Car Echo to the mix which involves the Alexa app, they sometimes appear in the Alexa app and nowhere else. So when the information is not properly transmitted to the vehicle display it becomes the game of hide and seek as to where the notification is so you can click on it to migrate the information to the vehicle display - i.e. severe distracted driving.
You are correct about Car Play 2.0. this is the upgrade that requires you to purchase a new luxury level vehicle to use it of which less than a handful of vehicles currently support it.
First of all I do not believe it is “an evil plot” but a strategy to maximize profits and income for senior executives and dividends for shareholders of which I am one of them. I have not heard of such profit gains being shared among the run of the mill employees. As for a warning I was an Apple employee starting in 1982 and still have an employee number assigned to me under 5000. I owned my first Apple computer, an Apple //e, starting around 1980 where I received it as a prize at the IEEE trade show, WESCON, for being the 1 millionth visitor. This was before Lisa, and Macintosh and Windows. At that time the only competitor OS for individual users was DOS and the Microsoft infant was making hardware, a Z80 card that plugged into the Apple // to run DOS. I purchased that card for my machine directly from Bill Gates himself at an AppleFest convention. As such the contention that “I was warned” I feel is totally incorrect. Additionally what seems to be often forgotten is that Apple only currently exists due to Bill Gates generosity. In those days Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was Bill Gates that gave Steve Jobs the loan that allowed Apple to continue to exist.
This is not correct - nothing is ‘required’. As has been stated earlier, it is highly unlikely Apple would stop support of CarPlay 1 - in the same way it doesn’t halt support for older machines when it updates MacOS. They continue to run happily on the older systems. This is the same as phones, cameras, fridges or any other tech - no-one is ‘forced’ to buy anything new.
Your opinion on GM’s move is valued but you seem to be fabricating arguments about Apple with little foundation.
This is exactly my argument for why CarPlay is so good - I get absolute consistency when moving between my 4 cars. I don’t have to learn each cars foibles, copy anything over or log into anything on the vehicle. I plug in the phone, play my music, read and respond to messages, make calls and navigate to my destination.
I’m sorry your car doesn’t play well with CarPlay, but until you confirm it’s Apple’s fault it’s a moot point. I’m not suggesting CarPlay is perfect, but saying it should be removed from an entire range of vehicles because of your experience isn’t a reasonable conclusion to draw.
Zero vehicles currently support it - Apple hasn’t released it yet. They are announcing the first cars that will support it later this year. iOS - CarPlay - Apple
As others have said, the current CarPlay will continue to work and be supported after 2.0 is released.
1 Like
According to what I read when the announcement came out there were less than a half dozen vehicles that were designed to support it. One of the brands was BMW but I honestly do not remember what other brands were listed. It was also my understanding that it was to be included in the next major release of IOS which given the time span is the current version. However I have no way of confirming that and that given other comments on the subject it may have been delayed. One thing that was made clear some time after was that other than the listed brands and new models at the time, which was late 2022, all other vehicles that were currently in or had ceased production will not support the update but will be stuck with the older or seemingly current version. So in order to utilize the upgrade users will need to purchase a new vehicle of the ones listed or perhaps a later brand and model that is configured to support the upgrade.
The basic issue here is that while in seems as though, from the comments, that it may work properly in some vehicles, but there are vehicles that it does not properly work. This is a matter of safety. I am of the opinion that the CarPlay should be recalled until either it works properly in all vehicles that are designed to support it, or that it should include code to disable it in vehicles in which it does not function properly or reliably. Distracted driving is a prescription for collisions, injury and death. Such unreliable operation is not allowed in aircraft and it should not be allowed in motor vehicles.
What vehicles will support CarPlay 2.0 isn’t decided by Apple. It’s decided by the automakers. Apple tells them what the hardware requirements will be, and the automakers decide whether they want to include them in their vehicles.
Yes, it’s going to initially appear in only high-end vehicles. That how virtually all new features appear in cars: the top-tier models, the luxury lines, get the cool stuff first. Then, if it proves popular, it works its way down to lower models. That’s how CarPlay 1.0 was initially, too. Good or bad, that’s how automakers do things.
But here’s the thing that bothers me about your arguments here: you are acting as though CarPlay 2.0 being initially available in only high-end vehicles is taking something away from you. It’s not. Your existing use of CarPlay will not be affected at all by the release of CarPlay 2.0 if you don’t have a vehicle that supports it. Existing CarPlay features will continue to work the same as they always have. Apple is not dropping support for CarPlay 1.0, nor are any automakers other than GM—and even GM isn’t removing it from vehicles that already have it; they’re just not going to include it in future vehicles.
Of course it would be great if all cars from all manufacturers added all the latest and greatest features right away. If automakers thought it would be in their best interests, they’d offer upgrades all the way down the line. But they don’t think that way. This is not Apple’s fault.
Maybe it’s time to wind this down. It feels like we’re going in circles.
2 Likes
That’s akin to saying Apple shouldn’t be able to sell computers whilst Adobe InDesign has bugs. Neither you or I can definitively say whether Apple or the vehicle makers are at fault but if you believe GM (or any other car maker) is going to be better at software/hardware integration than Apple I think you need to reconsider your position.
1 Like