Remember when Apple first showed off its vision for what CarPlay’s future would be like? A car infotainment system that deeply integrates with the entire car? Well, that’s finally coming true this year.
Apple has announced that the new CarPlay, called “CarPlay Ultra” is now available in the US and Canada. The company has partnered with Aston Martin, and new Aston Martin cars delivered in the US and Canada will support CarPlay Ultra.
What’s more, the company has said that CarPlay Ultra will also be coming via a software update to existing Aston Martin cars that have the brand’s next-gen infotainment system installed.
The new version of CarPlay is supposed to be more deeply integrated with your car, enabling a more intuitive and cohesive driving experience. Whether you’re controlling your music, getting directions on Apple Maps, or changing the climate controls in your car, CarPlay Ultra is going to make the entire experience more unified.
Plus, you will be able to use Siri to control features, both iPhone features as well as your car’s, such as controlling media playback, adjusting climate settings, and more. Apple also says that the new CarPlay experience will let you choose wallpapers, color themes, and everything else to match with your car (or just your own personality).
This also means that the instrument cluster in CarPlay Ultra-supported cars will be able to display Apple Maps (and hopefully Google Maps) right there as well. Plus, users will be able to change the instrument cluster display to show information such as a speedometer, odometer, fuel gauge, temperatures, tyre pressures, and more.
Toasty Take
CarPlay Ultra does look very clean, at least on the Aston Martin cars. The idea is definitely good, after all, car infotainment systems are notoriously poorly designed in terms of UI and UX. Having an Apple-designed UI everywhere in your car should be a good thing.
That said, my only concern is that smartphones aren’t always the most reliable in terms of their performance. I don’t know what will happen if someone is using CarPlay Ultra and their iPhone freezes up. Does that mean they can no longer control their car’s AC either? Hopefully physical buttons aren’t going away anytime soon.
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