iOS 26 CarPlay Audio Distortion

[doyledagain]

iOS 26 broke podcast playback in CarPlay for a lot of users. I've experienced it consistently since the beta releases, and now with the official release, I'm starting to see more people on other boards complain about this bug. The problem occurs in most non-music audio playback apps on CarPlay: Podcasts, Audible, Libby, Spotify, NPR, etc. -- Where the audio is highly distorted, as if the gain has been cranked up. They totally degraded one of the top uses for CarPlay.

Are you experiencing this as well? I'm hoping to boost discussion of this and get more people to report it on the feedback app. Weirdly enough, the best solution right now is to open your camera app during playback. For whatever reason, it lowers the gain on CarPlay. What is this ridiculousness!? Ha. It is crazy to me that the CarPlay team let this go unaddressed through what? Nine betas? Would love to see MacRumors cover this issue for users as well (I know, big ask). Have a good day.

 

[phrekaru]

I'm having lag since RC beta, Waze is very chopping; previous betas went fine

 

[markeknows]

Podcasts distorted for me too. Music is fine

 

[IscariotJ]

Poor quality in Books, regardless if audiobook is downloaded, or streamed. Music is fine.

 

[Todthebod]

iOS 26 broke podcast playback in CarPlay for a lot of users. I've experienced it consistently since the beta releases, and now with the official release, I'm starting to see more people on other boards complain about this bug. The problem occurs in most non-music audio playback apps on CarPlay: Podcasts, Audible, Libby, Spotify, NPR, etc. -- Where the audio is highly distorted, as if the gain has been cranked up. They totally degraded one of the top uses for CarPlay.

Are you experiencing this as well? I'm hoping to boost discussion of this and get more people to report it on the feedback app. Weirdly enough, the best solution right now is to open your camera app during playback. For whatever reason, it lowers the gain on CarPlay. What is this ridiculousness!? Ha. It is crazy to me that the CarPlay team let this go unaddressed through what? Nine betas? Would love to see MacRumors cover this issue for users as well (I know, big ask). Have a good day.

11 pro max. Mine has this distortion. It started immediately after the update. I almost yelled at my son for blowing my speakers as he drove my car the night before. lol

Only does it on Carplay. I thought maybe it was a wired issue so I bought a wireless dongle. it does it on it as well. It's distorted when I use the podcast app, youtube, youtube music. I can switch to bluetooth and it goes away as well as open the camera.

 

[DR3MCLAREN]

I don't have any audio issues thankfully, but I sure have Apple maps issues. 9 times out of 10 when i request directions to an address I get a server timed out message. So I find myself having to switch to Google maps quite often, which I don't like. Hoping the next update fixes these issues. Still far too many bugs in iOS 26 for prime time.

 

[IamBrad]

Same issue... Distorted podcast audio. Music app audio seems ok but is somewhat different to pre iOS26.

Will try Camera app kludge this morning.

 

[snakam]

I have a new iPhone17 and an old iPhone13pro(I'm going to trade it in soon) both with iOS26 installed.
I noticed that the sound quality of (iPhone17 + CarPlay + usb-c wire connect to my Volvo + playing Amazon Music) was terrible. It's like listening to an AM portable radio. Changing the cable did not improve the issue. When connecting through Bluetooth to the car's media player(my car has no wireless CarPlay connect), the audio is fairly good.
With the iPhone13pro, CarPlay has no audio quality problems. The sound is better than the Bluetooth music player.