3 CarPlay items I might admire from Apple for the vacations

Every vacation season, 1000’s upon 1000’s of motorists take to the open highway to drive to and from household meals, breakfasts, dinners, and the occasional sleepover. I do know this as a result of I’m one in every of stated motorists. I am going to spend over a full day on the highway earlier than this vacation season is thru, which provides me loads of time to consider my greatest gripes with infotainment programs like Apple CarPlay. What, you do not do this on highway journeys?

That stated, iOS 26 came along and elevated CarPlay past its unique red-headed stepchild standing in Apple’s product lineup. The platform has admittedly improved by leaps and bounds this 12 months, however there are nonetheless some presents Apple may fork over if it actually needed to. Customization has all the time been a central sticking level with the platform, however there are just a few different minor particulars that may change into grating over time.

Customized backgrounds are usually not rocket science

Apple is handing Android Auto a leg up within the competitors with this characteristic

Do you see that black sand background? That is not a preset. That is the background of my Android telephone displaying on the Android Auto interface. It is a easy information transaction that happens each time I plug my Android-powered workphone into any automobile I hire or personal or join wirelessly, and it lets me set a customized background for my infotainment show — what a novel idea.

As a substitute, once I use CarPlay, I get just a few gradient backgrounds with funky shapes and shadows. I am all about Apple’s design language. Heck, I reside in an Apple ecosystem from my residence workplace right down to my headphones. Nonetheless, the truth that such a easy, easy-to-implement characteristic has been neglected of the infotainment platform that Apple hopes to have in each automobile it might probably is bewildering to me. This characteristic has been on the prime of my Apple wishlist and can stay there till circumstances change.

Display screen diversifications want actual consideration

Some manufacturers have embarrassingly poor show dimensions

From model to model, the way in which CarPlay truly shows on-screen differs. As an example, one of many greatest complaints of Nissan Armada house owners is that the CarPlay show solely takes up round 2/3 of the display screen. Even on my 2025 VW Atlas, pictured above, CarPlay would not take up everything of the display screen.

A few of it is because drivers nonetheless have to retain entry to sure options like local weather management, and producers solely need these controls to be one button away. That is comprehensible in itself, however the execution is commonly missing. A number of customers of various car fashions report wonky dimensions of precise CarPlay shows, with some even turning drivers away from the CarPlay expertise totally. One would suppose the design language between fashions could be some extent of communication or high quality management, however with every unusual rendition of CarPlay’s implementation, that actuality appears additional and additional away.

Connectivity points are extra rampant than ever

The most recent replace did not repair the difficulty, both

Every time I write any story on CarPlay, it appears the feedback part floods with customers who cope with random disconnections every day. The kicker, although, is that with every replace, this subject truly appears to be worsening as days go by. I skilled this myself on a latest 10-hour highway journey, with connectivity drifting out and in extra continuously than on earlier journeys of comparable distances.

Most of those points appear to come up with wi-fi customers. Nevertheless, there have been stories that even wired connections now not work with iOS 26.2, regardless of the replace bringing a pair of useful features to the platform. At the least two of those requests are totally beauty, with the final being a difficulty that may require some extra TLC. Nevertheless, if it is a simple repair, why not give CarPlay customers the vacation items they’ve waited for all alongside?