3 CarPlay items I would respect 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 certainly one of mentioned motorists. I will spend over a full day on the highway earlier than this vacation season is thru, which supplies me loads of time to consider my greatest gripes with infotainment programs like Apple CarPlay. What, you do not try this on highway journeys?

That mentioned, iOS 26 came along and elevated CarPlay past its authentic red-headed stepchild standing in Apple’s product lineup. The platform has admittedly improved by leaps and bounds this yr, however there are nonetheless some presents Apple might fork over if it actually needed to. Customization has at all times been a central sticking level with the platform, however there are a couple of different minor particulars that may grow to be 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 knowledge transaction that happens each time I plug my Android-powered workphone into any automotive I lease or personal or join wirelessly, and it lets me set a customized background for my infotainment show — what a novel idea.

As a substitute, after I use CarPlay, I get a couple of 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 overlooked of the infotainment platform that Apple hopes to have in each automotive it might is bewildering to me. This characteristic has been on the high 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 illustration, 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 the whole thing of the display screen.

A few of it’s 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 usually 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 completely. One would assume the design language between fashions can be a degree 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 take care of random disconnections every day. The kicker, although, is that with every replace, this challenge truly appears to be worsening as days go by. I skilled this myself on a current 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 experiences that even wired connections now not work with iOS 26.2, regardless of the replace bringing a pair of useful features to the platform. A minimum of two of those requests are completely 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?