by Jason Snell
CarPlay in iOS 13 is a huge upgrade
We recently upgraded the car stereo in our Honda Civic Hybrid to a CarPlay receiver, which means I finally have a moving car with CarPlay. (All of my experiences with CarPlay up to this point have either been via a CarPlay box wired to an external power converter on my desk, or in rental cars.) I’ve been using it with iOS 13, and it’s a dramatic improvement over previous versions of CarPlay.
Over at MacStories, John Voorhees has taken a deep dive into what’s new in CarPlay, including my favorite feature, Dashboard:
In my use this summer, I’ve found the impact of the Dashboard is far greater than the sum of its parts. Each widget’s functionality is limited, but significantly reduces the time spent jumping back and forth between apps, especially from Maps. Previously, if I were navigating somewhere new, I’d keep Maps open but find myself moving to other apps to do things like skip a song and then return to Maps. Now, I can do that without leaving the Dashboard. It’s also nice to be able to open a calendar event or other app full-screen without first returning to the icon view to find it. It saves taps, which is faster and less distracting while driving.
Being able to see and control the Now Playing widget while still navigating with a maps app is a game changer for CarPlay, but there are a bunch of other nice upgrades, including Siri no longer blocking the entire interface when it’s active, and true screen independence—so if a passenger opens the CarPlay-connected iPhone and launches other apps, the CarPlay display keeps doing its job. What a concept!