What is Apple CarPlay and how does it work?

CarPlay is an Apple standard which connects your iPhone to the head unit in your car, so you will see a simplified version of your phone screen on the infotainment display. You don’t have the ability to use all of your phone’s functions to make it easier and safer to operate while driving a car, but it still allows quick access to some apps and features such as navigation, music streaming, messages and phone calls.
It is available on all iPhone models beginning with iPhone 5 running iOS 7.1 or later. It was released in May 2021, and it has been reported that major car manufacturers are using it in their vehicles. This is not surprising as Apple devices are the mass’s favourite.

It’s no longer news that Apple has been trying to build a car for so many years and so far, they have been largely unsuccessful at that. It seems they decided to take another approach by taking over everyone’s car with the new features on the next generation of CarPlay.

Features Of The Next Generation Of Car Play

1. The update will allow CarPlay to deeply integrate with a car’s hardware hence, allowing it to display information across multiple screens in your vehicle.
2. It will allow iPhone users to control and view phone-based apps through their car dashboards. This sounds cool but I feel it’s just another trick to get more people to buy an iPhone because if you don’t have an iPhone, this feature wouldn’t work.
3. You will be able to do things like: adjust climate controls, activate a seat heater or tune the car radio through CarPlay.
4. The software will take over a car’s instrument cluster making you see your current speed, fuel, battery levels, navigation details and other important information in a more unified way, using the Apple design.
5. The upgrade provides a range of themes and layouts to customise the look of a car’s instrument cluster.
6. There is an iPhone widget support for apps like weather, Apple music, calendar, and home which is accessible from the dashboard.
7. All these features can adapt to fit different screen sizes in different vehicles.

Although Apple didn’t go into the full details of how these new features work they, however, made it known that a connected iPhone will communicate with your vehicle’s real-time systems in an on-device, privacy-friendly way. The company noted that it will share more information on the updated CarPlay in the future and that it will start to announce compatible vehicles in late 2023.
Apple also mentioned that the following car manufacturers plan to support this dream of theirs for the updated CarPlay, Ford, Mercedes, Nissan, Porsche, Land Rover, Audi, Acura, Honda, Lincoln, Jaguar, Volvo, Renault, Polestar, and Infiniti.
CONCLUSION
It’s no longer news that Apple has been trying to build a car for so many years and so far, they have been largely unsuccessful at that. It seems they decided to take another approach by taking over everyone’s car with the new features on the next generation of CarPlay. From the look of things, they are set to completely take over from Android auto who doesn’t even stand a chance with the Apple CarPlay.