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Glad I don't buy newer cars anyway. CarPlay still works fine for me with my add-on screen, and in my wife's car with her upgraded head unit. Honestly, Apple should just make it possible to run CarPlay on an iPad. No depending on automakers to support it, they can sell more hardware, and it'll perform much better than some of the cheaper aftermarket radios that all run Android on subpar processors.
It would be a great perk for cellular (w/gps) iPads. Basically standalone.
 
I think it remains to be seen for the car companies making this available whether they begin to see this as a competitive advantage. IMHO, I think it would make sense for car manufacturers to implement their own solution while also making this a user-selectable option realizing that that does complicate development/deployment. In the two different cars I've had where there's been a "native" (i.e., developed by the auto company) vs. Car Play implementation, the "native" version has been awful.
Same here, won't buy a car without CarPlay. And I also think that those car makers that don't want to offer it, it is because they are going to implement: "pay extra" to get that feature! or subscribe to seat heater, etc. I guess we won't own those cars any more even after paying!
 
Will be a long time before most of the vehicles on the list get CarPlay Ultra. Vehicle manufacturers don't seem too interested.

I'm personally in the camp that thinks this will quietly fade away into nothingness in a few years and become "hey, remember CarPlay Ultra? 😂"
 
Strange that Porsche is yes, Audi is no, and VW is undeclared. I imagine VW would want to use the software that comes from their Rivian partnership, but why not come out and say that?
 
Automakers are flip flopping every which way. They can't decide between gas vs hybrid vs EV. They can't decide what to use for infotainment. Why? Because they have no vision. The correct strategy for infotainment is to own their tech and keep it simple. Once they are beholden to big tech, they are screwed and so are we consumers. Once big tech owns the space, they won't care about allowing auto manufacturers to differentiate (look at the smartphone world) and they will charge the automakers gobs of money and even force subscriptions on consumers.
 
it's looking more and more like CarPlay ultra will be DOA.

Hopefully it'll be a defining feature of customer purchases which will drive adoption from other manufacturers. But i'm not very hopeful. Car Companies aren't exactly known for responding to customer demands.
 
BMW really thinks they have a good system at hand... The iDrive is terrible...
 
I won't buy a car without CarPlay, but CarPlay Ultra isn't much of a draw for me, or probably most of the population. I suspect the vast majority of those "Unknown" and "Maybe" manufacturers in the article will not adopt CarPlay Ultra, at least not in the next several years.

BTW, I already mentioned in the other thread that my Toyota comes with dual 12.3" screens, one for the instrument cluster and one for the infotainment system. It also has a small third screen, for the head up display. The standard CarPlay takes care of the infotainment screen, but the other two screen run Toyota's own software. However, I as I noted in the other thread, despite not having CarPlay Ultra, both the instrument cluster and the head up display show turn-by-turn instructions from Apple Maps in CarPlay, and the instrument cluster also shows the song currently playing in CarPlay despite running Toyota's OS. In that context, CarPlay Ultra seems superfluous.

I'm honestly shocked they got Hyundai group on board. Aston makes sense; they can save millions on SDE payroll by letting Apple do heavy lifting to support a launch partner. I kind of can't believe a volume manufacturer bought in...guess my next car will be a Genesis.
If any major manufacturer, it would be Hyundai / Kia. They have historically outfitted their cars right from the low end up with all the multimedia bells and whistles, in order to get customers to overlook their poor reliability records.
 
Why can't there be an industry standard base architecture that allows app developers to create an app that can be instaled in all OEM OSs. Apple Maps, Music, Podcasts, Calendar, Messages etc. should be available as apps in Rivian, Tesla, GM, etc OSs. Who suffers in this battle? Us, the customers.
 
Honestly, Apple should just make it possible to run CarPlay on an iPad.
That iPad is gonna be none too happy to be sitting in a 130° car parked in the sun on a summer day, I'll tell you that.

I guess you could detach it every time and take it with you, but that sounds like a huge PITA to me. Better to just buy a dedicated unit that's specifically designed to live in a car. I put this one in my 2017 Honda and love it -- 700 nits, wireless, very solidly built. Before I bought it I was wondering about just mounting an iPad and calling it a day, but once I realized that iPad was going to get roasted to death in a hot car, I abandoned the idea.

Not crapping on the idea of iPadOS functioning as a CarPlay screen, but anyone expecting to park an iPad permanently on their dash is probably gonna have some problems.
 
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Volvo and BMW are really shooting themselves in the foot. Volvo's new EVs are nice but the software is a giant Android phone screen and it's terrible. BMW's iDrive is just a disaster lol.

Ford has been the best US carmaker and would really help themselves by using CarPlay Ultra.

The only reason for a carmaker to not integrate CarPlay Ultra is if they want to monetize the dashboard with a subscription.
 
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Since us Tesla owners have never had even the prospect of having CarPlay, this news is neither here nor there. Car owners don’t want 3rd party companies coming in to run their UI.
I disagree. I like having CarPlay as it means I will have the same smooth experience in every car I drive that has it. always up to date maps that I don't have to pay extra for and easy to use interface. plus all my streaming apps in one place that I don't have to pay extra for just to access in each car.
 
The only reason for a carmaker to not integrate CarPlay Ultra is if they want to monetize the dashboard with a subscription.
No, it's because users are not clamouring for CarPlayification of the instrument cluster, and there really isn't a big need for it. Plus it cedes control of the interface to Apple. Car manufacturers don't want to pay Apple for something that doesn't really benefit them, and which only a small minority of customers actually care about, for something that effectively debrands the car.
 
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The government must step in and force all these carmakers to open up their systems to Carplay now!!1

/s

We get the joke effort, but it misses in a variety of ways.

Screenshot 2025-06-27 at 13.17.50.png
 
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The correct strategy for infotainment is to own their tech and keep it simple.
they don't own nothing. their infotainment tech is in many cases delivered by smaller, less known players. there are a few true innovators though, like BMW was with its dial thingie in the early 2000s.
but the rest of the players just do "skins". it's not their core business. and by this, they are held hostage by their current parter - which means no way they can efficiently backport features between 2 different platforms.

now don't get me wrong: a car must be usable as it is, without any smartphone in sight. but at the end, it's almost the same data and messages that travel through the CAN bus. since this is more like a LEGO: a few OEMs build ECUs, a few other build climate controllers, etc.

the big threat to these companies is the inability to distinguish themselves from the others. look, if you can get the same user experience from a premium car that you get on a higher mid-tier car, you might just choose the lower priced one. or if you can get the same look and feel in brand A that you get in brand B, they both have more competition. you can get premium infotainment features (that are way better than the built-in ones by default) on non-premium vehicles - and this will make the automakers struggle with their current upselling strategy.

let's be fair, for an everyday Joe who drives shorter distances there's not much to see other than the dash in front of them (unless they're into that specific brand) or the infotainment screen. everything is basically the less visually catching.
 
I'm pretty sure that once Kia starts offering CarPlay Ultra that a lot of companies will be forced to change their minds.
 
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