For many smartphone owners, Apple is he Since 2022, Apple has made it clear that it wants that to be the same for many drivers, too. That’s when the company announced the “next-generation” CarPlay 2, which will extend CarPlay’s convenient screen mirroring technology beyond a vehicle’s central infotainment display to additional dashboard screens, including gauge clusters and dashboards.
That is, if automakers allow it. On Monday, another Apple event came and went with no word on when, exactly, this new CarPlay might appear, despite the fact that Apple says on their website that the first vehicle models with this function will make their debut in 2024, a year that only has three months left.
Since Apple unveiled its vision for the next generation of the service two years ago, many automakers have made it clear they’re uncomfortable with the idea of ceding control of their display designs to Apple Inc. Weeks after the Mercedes-Benz logo was included in Apple’s initial 2022 CarPlay 2 unveiling, the car company appeared to balk. “Giving the entire head unit in the cabin — in our case, a passenger display and everything — to someone else?” Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius asked. said The edge in 2022. “The answer is no.”
Two automakers, Porsche and Aston Martin, have pledged to collaborate with Apple on the next generation of CarPlay. A Porsche spokesman, Calvin Kim, said the automaker had no update on when the new CarPlay would arrive. An Aston Martin spokesperson declined to comment, referring WIRED to Apple for news about CarPlay. An Apple spokesperson did not immediately respond to WIRED’s questions about when the next CarPlay would debut.
Still, Apple appears to have heard at least some of automakers’ concerns. At Apple’s WWDC conference over the summer, the tech giant released two new CarPlay videos that made it clear that automakers would have some control over the architecture and design of the interfaces that appear in their cars, using what Apple calls a “Shortcut UI.” This would allow an automaker, for example, to show its specific driver-assistance display or backup camera even when CarPlay is “in control” of your car’s footage.
From a Technical perspectiveThe new CarPlay communicates more closely with the vehicles’ software than the previous version. Whereas the first version simply provided a video display to the car, CarPlay will have to interact with the vehicle’s software to provide vehicle-specific information, such as tire pressure and temperature, in its own user interface.
At least one automaker has said it definitely won’t work with Apple CarPlay, or even its competitor, Android Auto. General Motors announced last year that their vehicles would rely on their own GM-built operating system.
