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Car Play using Bluetooth has been a disaster on a BMW after iOS17. I get all sorts of errors from Bluetooth not recognized to not being able to connect phone or to phone already connected. What a disaster.
 
Wireless CarPlay in my car handled the 15 Pro without a problem, and of course the Apple-brand MagSafe puck works too.

I’m picking up a rental car tomorrow (2021 Traverse) and I have a USB-C to USB-C and a USB-A to USB-C cable in my bag… and my wife’s iPhone 12 Pro is my backup plan if I have cable problems 😬
 
God to know it’s not just me. I tried the below cable for Amazon yesterday, and CarPlay would go in and out: not reliable at all. Also, it was hit or miss that the phone would charge while connected to my vehicle.

 
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No one needs to get all worried about this. *Almost* all USB A to USB C cables will work for Carplay without issue. The exceptions are (as others have noted)
  1. charge only cables. These are usually cables that came with another device and usually cheap devices at that. Don't use these.
  2. Gas station cables stuffed in a bin by the register. In this case it doesn't matter if it's USB C or Apple Lightning. You're likely getting garbage either way.
If you buy a regular cable with decent reviews you're fine.
When people talk about the standard issues with USB C they are usually referring to the fact Thunderbolt can come in USB C form and that can cause confusion when trying to use it as a monitor cable for example. Carplay is far less demanding and shouldn't be a problem for most cables.
 
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I bought these, work fine for my Crosstrek with no USB-C:


Although I am shocked Apple didn't create their own USB A to type C cable. Seems like a huge miss in revenue considering the majority of vehicles out there don't have USB Type C ports.
Agreed, I too wonder why Apple didn’t create their own version.
 
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Yeah it's the EU's fault that Apple failed to implement the industry standard connector.
The industry standard didn’t exist and when it did become available its users had already adopted the lightning cable. Apple told everyone that swapping to USBC would be bad for its users, but the EU enforced, and now the users are having a bad time (maybe not all, but definitely not none, and more than were complaining bout not having USBC) .
 
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Why don’t you guys lobby the EU to make lightning port the industry standard, since lightning is so perfect and far superior than USB-C in every way imaginable? Meanwhile Apple profit would go through the roof with all the license fees it is charging, exemplary news for shareholders too.
Nobody is saying the Lightning port is better, it was better than microUSB when it came out. and the point is the EU shouldn’t be forcing any company to make anything standard. Also now that every has lightning cables, billions of users, Apple is going to make a killing off of dongles, the very thing this article is about. Your cheap dongle didn’t work, you should buy the certified Apple dongle.
 
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CarPlay has been a mess for me. Music app needs force closed on the phone to start playing music again after it freezes, maps kicks to offline mode and never comes back to normal, display freezes and stops updating so changes don't show on the display. iOS 17 ruined CarPlay.
 
Nobody is saying the Lightning port is better, it was better than microUSB when it came out. and the point is the EU shouldn’t be forcing any company to make anything standard. Also now that every has lightning cables, billions of users, Apple is going to make a killing off of dongles, the very thing this article is about. Your cheap dongle didn’t work, you should buy the certified Apple dongle.
Yeah just like that. Apple elegantly make USB-C port on iPhone as painful to use as possible and extract more money from customers. But back when lightning was amazing, no one lobbied EU to make it the industry standard. Now, Apple alone fights the world on this port thing because everyone else uses USB-C, failed, complied but carries tons of caveats.
 
It has worked fine for me here with every cable I’ve tried so far. Admittedly, I only had a couple USB to USB-C cables.
 
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Nobody is saying the Lightning port is better
Oh, nobody has said this so far? I will. Since I don’t transfer much data over cable, the Lightning connector is more practical and better for me.

But I will adapt.
 
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Yeah just like that. Apple elegantly make USB-C port on iPhone as painful to use as possible and extract more money from customers. But back when lightning was amazing, no one lobbied EU to make it the industry standard. Now, Apple alone fights the world on this port thing because everyone else uses USB-C, failed, complied but carries tons of caveats.
Apple actually invested in USB C years ago when they got rid of all the ports on their Macbook 'Pro'. And the iPad has USBC long ago. If extracting money out of their customers is all they want, they've been doing it all this time. It has nothing to do with the iPhone. The change this year is the combination of EU regulatory and the convenience to move on from lightning.
 
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Oh, nobody has said this so far? I will. Since I don’t transfer much data over cable, the Lightning connector is more practical and better for me.

But I will adapt.
For me, one less cable to carry around. It's a win.
 
Hi,

I live in EU (Spain) and since I got my IPhone 15 PM last week all USB-A to USB-C cables I’ve tested so far worked with my Volkswagen Passat (2017). It also works wirelessly like a charm on my other newer electric car (Skoda Eniaq).

It also worked with my previous lightning cable with one of these adaptors (11€ in Amazon) https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0BYZVNXLR?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

So I guess that this issue has more to do with car makers than with Apple or cables.

Hope this helps

Regards
 
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So many iPhone 15 bugs and blunders.
Why is this Apples fault?? If you can afford a car and fuel, you can afford a descent cable. Stop using cheapies. A non issue of you ask me, I only use quality cables on my 15 Pro and it's worked perfectly.
 
I first tried using. Usb3.0 cable and it did charge or load CarPlay.
Tried again with a cable that came with a cheotech Qi charger not even deigned for data and that one works fine!
 
Unregulated USB... *sigh*

Make sure you buy the cable supports data, some cheap cable only supports power.
 
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I’m currently using the charging cable that came with my Google Nest doorbell - a cable not designed for data in its primary application - and it works just fine.
 
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