So many BMW and Audi owners liked our Mr12Volt P2000 CarPlay interface and lots of friends have emailed me asking what’s the advantages of using CarPlay and what are the best apps for Apple CarPlay that they should not miss out.
So I’ve made a little research and below is my thought.
Apple Carplay, since launching in 2014 with iOS 7.1, have made life much easier and safer for millions of drivers. Unlike other sub-par interface created by car manufacturers, CarPlay revolutionized the car infotainment experience by simply giving you a “similar to iPhone” interface run by your iPhone that you use everyday.
CarPlay makes it easier for drivers to use their daily apps while driving, like Phone, Messages, Maps via their car’s built in big screen (nowadays most of them are touchscreens) dashboard display. These apps are re-designed by third party developers with simpler interface: bigger and fewer icons, less text, Intuitive control aimed to reduce distraction while you are driving.
You can also ask SIRI to read out your messages and reply to them.
There’s not like thousands of apps for you to choose from, however, there are still plenty of CarPlay apps that can keep you entertained. Keep in mind that gaming and video playing apps are still not supported, driving or parked.
Let me show you what apps Apple have built into CarPlay first:
Apple Apps
- Phone (Favorites, Recents, Contacts, Keypad, Voicemail)
- Music (Apple Music, what more can I say...)
- Maps (Search, Point Of Interests, Navigation, Nearby, Lane Guidance, ETA sharing, basically it just brings you to wherever you wanna go)
- Messages (Create messages, you can ask SIRI to read out messages and reply over Siri)
- Now Playing (This will show audio content from any iPhone app similar to iOS’s Control Center)
- Podcasts (Works with SIRI)
- Books (Since iOS 8.4 for playing audiobooks)
- Calendar (Since iOS 13 for viewing current and upcoming events, including addresses)
- Settings (Since iOS 13 for controlling Do Not Disturb While Driving, Light and Dark Mode, and Siri Suggestions)
- Dashboard (A new addition to the Home Screen since iOS 13, includes tiles for navigation, favorite locations, now playing audio, Siri Suggestions, and calendar events)
Basically Apple has well considered everything that you could do while driving.... but there's more! These are the apps that you should not miss out too:
Spotify
[image credit: techcrunch.com]
Spotify has a clean and simply to use interface to browser through all your music, you can play your favorite music by Artist, Album, Playlist and song names. In my opinion Spotify is the best Apple Music alternative.
WhatsApp is one of the most used communication apps in the world, and your friends certainly will not just settle with the iMessage to talk to you.
Like any CarPlay messaging apps, incoming messages cannot be read from the screen. Thankfully, SIRI will read them out to you or you can save the messages for later if there's a privacy issue.
Google Maps
Google Maps for CarPlay is one of the best navigation system you will love, cool features like live traffic, automated rerouting to avoid heavy traffic, and the dulcet tones of the Google Assistant telling you where to go. Finding way in the city is not a difficult task anymore.
Google Maps for CarPlay has also been updated to appear in the new Dashboard view of CarPlay since iOS13, which shows your navigation, plus music controls all at once (you will need a bigger screen)
Waze
Waze is a popular, also owned by Google, navigation app which relies heavily on crowd-sourced information to warn you of incidents and traffic james en-route to your destination. These very first hand traffic info are submitted by live fellow Waze users. You will find icons for users on the map who reported traffic inccidents in live.
Apple Podcasts
Millions of iPhone users listen to podcasts and Apple has done a great job by making this app work well with CarPlay.
The CarPlay version has every podcast you want to listen arranged in a clean and simply interface. Especially a full-screen media control page with large play / pause and forward / back controls.
So much for today, I'll go grab a coffee now. I will keep updating this post when there are brilliant apps that you should not miss being released.
Related Topics:
Best CarPlay interface for BMW and AUDI
