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Tesla Working to Add Apple CarPlay Support to Vehicles

Tesla’s infotainment system and UI are easily the best in the industry—and the most “American” in terms of design philosophy. Your passenger can actually use the screen, type, and interact with the system while you’re driving. No other car on the market allows that level of functionality.

Apple CarPlay, by comparison, is incredibly limiting. Tesla’s native system already includes Google Maps, all the major streaming services, and full Apple Music and Spotify support without ever needing to connect your phone. What exactly are people still trying to “add” with CarPlay?

Every time I get into my wife’s brand-new Yukon Denali, it feels like a step backward. I’m forced to use CarPlay—and it’s a clunky experience. If someone struggles with Tesla’s system, it’s almost always because they haven’t taken the time to set it up correctly.
 
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MA10N3 said:
What exactly are people still trying to “add” with CarPlay?
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As far as I can see, there’s Waze (the standard way of always being ahead of police, short of getting a radar detector and police radio scanner). There’s iMessage, not supported outside of Carplay (unless you can use Siri over Bluetooth to send messages, but that kind of sucks), and I think there’s also other messaging apps, Microsoft Teams is one I have used in Carplay, lets me take calls and control it without going to my phone.

There’s also the general ability to use other maps if you wanted to, like off-road maps, offline maps, things like that, not sure if Tesla can just download a whole country’s worth of maps in one go, but you can do that with Here maps. And Tesla’s not really a good choice for off-roading, but in off-road oriented vehicles like a Land Rover or Land Cruiser or Bronco, having OnX maps seems quite nice.

Yes you can always do Bluetooth and go direct to your phone for control, but Carplay is better than that at least, well my opinion is it’s better than trying to fiddle with your phone while driving.
 
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Good if Tesla supports it. Would prefer a new car to have CarPlay support and this move should help Tesla. Would like car manufacturers to be less reluctant in adding support.
 
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Craiger said:
Holiday update perhaps? That’s when they drop big fan favorites usually.

Intel atom support?
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I hope Atom Support, I have an Atom M3FLP. I don't see how Atom cant power it, My partner has a Stellantis car and its infotainment system is powered by a hamster on a wheel and Car Play still works
 
I Love Tesla's Infotainment system, couple of bits annoy me however,

1, the car will only read Messages and not other Apps like What's App.
2, Some apps I use for podcasts / audio streaming are not built into the Tesla yet which means I have to BT them from my phone, not an issue unless I want to change what I'm listening to id have to pick up my phone and change which is a BIG NO NO in the country I live in.

I cant see how this is anything but a good thing. Tesla Owners like myself will say the Tesla system is great, and it is! But if some people what to use Car play then what is the harm in letting them choose to use that? Given the Option id use both. I find the mapping on my Tesla Second to none. Never once has it failed to direct me around traffic and it knows the cars charge and will plan the route accordingly is great.

For messaging, calls and changing audio sources while driving Car Play is better. Gimme both :)
 
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Carplay would be awesome! Wish it was Ultra though, but still better than not having it.
 
cocky jeremy said:
Nothing emotional about it. It's based on facts that you can easily find on the internet.
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You can Google any car manufacturer and get the exact same results.... Just like with any other product, people go online and on YouTube to complain about defects.... You should know that as a member of a tech forum.... For every complaint there are millions that are perfectly happy and are experiencing very minor issues ..... The truth is you have a personal emotional issue against either Tesla or EV's in general because you spew this same "they are junk" b.s. in every ev related thread. Stop passing it off as fact many of us are very happy with our EV's just admit it's your own personal bias or opinion.
 
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I7guy said:
Did hell just freeze over? Funny thing or maybe ironic. I turned off my WiFi today before I drove to work. When I exited the vehicle I got a message about enabling WiFi to enable wireless CarPlay. (Or whatever the exact message was). I was confused to say the least. Maybe a harbinger?
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I'll be honest. I am very surprised they are working on this. Curious to see the implementation, and whether or not folks are happy with it. I am also interested it seeing how the overlay plays with V14's attempt to take over the whole display by default.
 
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nusynergy said:
I Love Tesla's Infotainment system, couple of bits annoy me however,

1, the car will only read Messages and not other Apps like What's App.
2, Some apps I use for podcasts / audio streaming are not built into the Tesla yet which means I have to BT them from my phone, not an issue unless I want to change what I'm listening to id have to pick up my phone and change which is a BIG NO NO in the country I live in.

I cant see how this is anything but a good thing. Tesla Owners like myself will say the Tesla system is great, and it is! But if some people what to use Car play then what is the harm in letting them choose to use that? Given the Option id use both. I find the mapping on my Tesla Second to none. Never once has it failed to direct me around traffic and it knows the cars charge and will plan the route accordingly is great.

For messaging, calls and changing audio sources while driving Car Play is better. Gimme both :)
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I see why some people want CarPlay: for certain nav/comm/media apps they prefer.

Personally, I find the native apps at least as good or better than 3rd parties, eg the Tesla Mapbox+Google nav over Waze. Especially true considering their integration into the rest of the vehicle UI.

CarPlay is really good in vehicles with poor native systems (which is almost all of them). Where it's clunky is having to bounce back and forth between native car UI (such as the sound equalizer) and CarPlay UI.

One argument against implementation of CarPlay is that it diverts resources -- licensing fees, hardware, coding, testing -- that could otherwise be applied elsewhere. Like, instead of having a team work on CarPlay, they can have that team add another podcast source to the car and enhance the Sentry mode or whatever.
 
Maybe - give the other article about xAi's lawsuit over chatGPT integration this is one of those things where the behind the scenes is "well open teslas up to CarPlay if you open iPhones up to Grok - win win win"
 
cocky jeremy said:
Didn't need to be. Two seconds of thought and it's 100% accurate.
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cocky jeremy said:
I still wouldn't buy one.

1) They're junk.
2) Elon will just get pissy with Apple and take it away when he gets upset.
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I thought the same as you until I actually drove one. So many benefits of a Model 3 outweigh long term maintenance and yearly fuel charges. I thought they were whack, ugly, cheesy, etc...The only thing I can say is nearly 15k miles in on my M3 and used only $798 throughout the year to charge and no maintenance. When I looked at the math fuel alone on most V6/V8 would run you at least $2500-$3500 throughout the year. Factor in oil changes or any checkups you are at least over $3000-$4000 just to operate a gas vehicle yearly. I chose not to live like this. People are trapped to gas stations and dealerships.
 
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Telsa might be doing this solely to prevent an Apple "Tesla is hypocritical" defense.

Check this other MacRumor that came out the next day, "Apple and OpenAI Must Face xAI Lawsuit Over Siri Integration." These are mirror images.
 
CarPlay won't boost sales. A New CEO will.

I literally test drove a Model Y and absolutely loved it. I even have a Supercharger 2mins away from my house. But I can not in good conscience buy a car from him. I am happy to see that CarPlay is coming to Tesla's though. I wanted that way back in like 2016-2018.
 
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Fallforward said:
Telsa might be doing this solely to prevent an Apple "Tesla is hypocritical" defense. ...
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Meh. I think those conversations happened long ago... IMHO, there is very little that could be gained in that regards.

As others noted earlier in the thread, this almost certainly foreshadows other future collabs between the two, such as better satellite integration across the iPhone line. Which is to say, I think they've simply decided that it's time to bury the hatchet in favor of more profitable ventures.
 
JordanCautious said:
CarPlay won't boost sales. A New CEO will.
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That won’t work either. My anecdotal evidence is Most people i know wont buy a Tesla because it’s an ev. Oh sure some people look at the management committee of a company before deciding to buy their products, but I’ve only met them on MR.
JordanCautious said:
I literally test drove a Model Y and absolutely loved it. I even have a Supercharger 2mins away from my house. But I can not in good conscience buy a car from him. I am happy to see that CarPlay is coming to Tesla's though. I wanted that way back in like 2016-2018.
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Let me say I’m happy CarPlay is coming to Tesla.

Not all of the time do I need the deep integration and need to use the native navigation. Sometimes traveling 25 miles away I’m more concerned with speed traps, for example.
 
zarmanto said:
Meh. I think those conversations happened long ago... IMHO, there is very little that could be gained in that regards.

As others noted earlier in the thread, this almost certainly foreshadows other future collabs between the two, such as better satellite integration across the iPhone line. Which is to say, I think they've simply decided that it's time to bury the hatchet in favor of more profitable ventures.
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"Apple and OpenAI Must Face xAI Lawsuit Over Siri Integration" You may well be right, given the potential win-win synergies. Still, that lawsuit isn't quacking collaboration.
 
I think what Tesla may do is essentially enhance its own navigation to have full Google Maps and Waze functionality and allow a limited form of CarPlay so you can use the phone functions on the iPhone and also have access to music and podcasts stored on the iPhone.
 
I can't see a situation where I'd want to use this.

1. I rely on tesla maps and it's perfectly fine, as someone else mentioned, it includes supercharger locations
2. I use the built-in spotify app for music, it's fine (though if the carplay spotify app allows for lossless and gapless playback, then that might be a reason to use it)

The other apps are all just gimmicks.
 
dba415 said:
I can't see a situation where I'd want to use this.

1. I rely on tesla maps and it's perfectly fine, as someone else mentioned, it includes supercharger locations
2. I use the built-in spotify app for music, it's fine (though if the carplay spotify app allows for lossless and gapless playback, then that might be a reason to use it)

The other apps are all just gimmicks.
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I use Overcast for podcasts, which is overwhelmingly what I listen to when driving.

The ONLY way for that to be sycned between our 4 cars and when I'm going for walks, it for it to come from my phone. The only way for that to not be annoying in the cars is CarPlay.

... and the only way I still have a drivers license is nav based police speed trap location notifications.

... and the data connection in all cars will eventually be not free, and no way I'm paying monthly for that, when I'm already paying for it through my phone and can use that via carplay.

... and car makers are heinous with selling user data.

For these reasons and more, I refuse to buy any cars without CarPlay. So, if this pushes through, for the first time ever, a Tesla becomes an actual option for me.
 
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