Apple Makes Meaningful Change to CarPlay

Despite carmakers sinking untold amounts of R&D trying (and mostly failing) to convince us otherwise, many drivers prefer a measure of smartphone mirroring to whatever iConnectStarDriveLink car brands foist upon their wares. In that vein, Apple has made a small but notable change to CarPlay in its latest iOS update.

With screens in our vehicles rapidly growing to jumbotron sizes, third parties like Cupertino are able to make tweaks to take advantage of the digital real estate. The new (beta) version of iOS 18.4 now permits a trio of icon rows when connected to certain infotainment systems – namely ones which have a screen size rivalling that of the television we had in the living room forty years ago.

It isn’t clear what the screen size cut-off for the presentation of three icon rows but an appropriately new iPhone running the beta of iOS 18.4 on a top-trim Civic with its fresh 9.0-inch touchscreen will find the system capable of displaying a tri-row of Day-Glo apps. The same is also reported for machines like the new Toyota Tundra equipped with the huge 14.0-inch screen. However, we could two rows of icons on an 8.4-inch Uconnect in a Stellantis product using an iPhone 15 Pro with iOS 18.4 this morning, so that size screen might be the floor.

These examples are screens oriented in the popular landscape position, of course. There have been numerous cars with portrait-style tablets which have been able to display more than two rows of icons for some time now. However, those models don't always have as many icons on their x-axis.

Why does any of this matter? Because convenience, of course. CarPlay (and Android Auto) provide a dose of familiarity to users, having been immersed in their environments for a spell. It arguably reduces distraction if a driver can interact with an interface they immediately recognize instead of relearning a ton of commands each time they get behind the wheel. Being able to simply interact with apps like Waze is a boon to unfussy driving. Of course, your gearhead weirdo authors around here would rather the simplicity of controls from a ‘90s econobox but we all know that’s not happening again any time soon.

[Image: Apple]

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