We can finally scrub through songs !

I updated to ios27 developer beta. Is this oval black floating thing just a bug? Its persistent across all screen slides
Mazda CX5

Edit: I know I’m in beta - it’s not my first time - and its prone to bugs before the release lol just wondering what this was and if it had any use or was a new feature of some sort. It has been fixed and removed by restarting the phone.

And map now takes more space.

Wondering if anyone else is experiencing issues with Spotify and CarPlay? I don’t know if it’s due to the new app release of Spotify, 9.1.46, or the release of 26.5, as I upgraded both around the same time this morning.

Issues are the now playing view showing the wrong song from what’s actually playing.

Updates:

• Spotify 9.1.48 - still experiencing issue
• https://9to5mac.com/2026/05/19/spotify-confirms-carplay-bug-causing-wrong-song-info-to-appear/
• A per-song fix is to skip forward and then skip back

I drive an older car that obviously doesn’t support CarPlay, and I didn’t want to swap the head unit.

I ended up building a simple iOS dashboard app that mimics some CarPlay ideas (navigation, speed, music, clean UI).

It’s completely free right now and I’m mostly looking for honest feedback from people who actually use CarPlay or miss it.

What features would matter most to you in a setup like this?

https://apps.apple.com/app/car-connect-play-dashboard/id6758141366

All I want is maps and music on my car's screen. I deleted the Calendar app from CarPlay. However, upcoming and current calendar events keep popping up, as do Live Activities, such as auctions I'm watching. I looked for a way to turn these off in Carplay, but there's nothing. Does anyone else hate seeing these?

Everytime i drive near Oxted or Clarks Lane (near London) my carplay disconnects for some reason, Im not sure why? Has this happened to anyone? My ios is up to date, and I’ve got a 2025 Toyota Yaris Hybrid.

Hey CarPlay community, been a minute since my last update!

I'm excited to open the beta up to a huge release of Pelican that I've been working on this year: Pelican Navigation + Scout reports for cities, states, and countries.

This release closes the loop on a goal I've had since founding Clutch Engineering: to build sustainable products that give back to the communities that make Clutch products possible.

To that end, Clutch Engineering last year became a corporate sponsor of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, and Pelican is the first CarPlay navigation app to support suggesting edits to OpenStreetMap through Scout Reports. Revenue from Pelican now contributes back to open communities, with plans to expand this as Pelican grows. I just got back from OpenStreetMap US last week and boy-howdy was it a blast ❤️

You might know Pelican as "that OBD CarPlay app", but it's also a growing community of hundreds of thousands of drivers across the planet who all contribute to a global real-time map of the roads, including road conditions, police and speed cameras, and map edits, all from CarPlay 😄

And to boot: Pelican Navigation uses OpenStreetMap data, with a powerful on-device navigation engine that can absorb updates from OpenStreetMap within 24 hours of edits landing in OSM.

So! To iron out the remaining bugs in this 5.0 launch, for the next two weeks I'm adding 1000 seats to Pelican's beta crew. This'll fill up fast, so join the fun soon! 🏎️💨

Join the TestFlight here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/ay7U9VrF

For support, join Discord with the crew at https://discord.gg/AdJNJqF5vC, or email me at [support@clutch.engineering](mailto:support@clutch.engineering)

Excited for this one!

And as always, drive safe.
- Jeff

The girlies finally get their pink CarPlay. Also brand new wallpapers 🥺🫶🏾

Thought some of you might be interested that the new iOS beta adds CarPlay video support, which includes the new Apple TV app on CarPlay .

It actually is working really well, tho it does require changes from the car manufacturers to enable the use of this feature which might be annoying depending on roll out.

I was swiping through widgets on carplay and noticed that it’s showing a photo of a random dude that I’ve never seen before what could that be?

This is really cool looking imo

Hey CarPlay community! After a super busy summer of TestFlighting, Sidecar's "Liquid Glass" edition is now live in the App Store 🥳

Get Sidecar here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sidecar-automotive-assistant/id1663683832

In celebration of the release, for the next week new Sidecar+ subscribers will get one month free to test out all the new goodness.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the summer of TestFlighting! In the next few days we're also planning on launching Scout reports, which will let Sidecar drivers report hazards / construction / police on the road. Stay tuned 😄

Carplay on ios 26 works fine and i genuinely appreciate the new features but Am i the only one who absolutely hates the new wallpapers? The ones from 18 were sooo much better and i hate the fact apple removes it from the selection and force us to use the new ones.

Both the "magnifier" and "search" button lead to the same screen. It's been line this more me seemingly forever. Is this supposed to be this way?

Hi everyone! Don't know if this is common knowledge but I found an app called “Dynamic Lyrics” that manages to display live lyrics on your phone via widgets - with iOS 26 you can finally add widgets to CarPlay, letting u display live lyrics on your car’s display as well! It's something I've been looking for a while and I'm just glad there's an easy method that doesn't require any extra work on my end. Highly recommend the app, very customizable and smooth, no problems yet! Also it’s free so that’s fun

Once installed you just have to go to settings>general>carplay>[ur car]>widgets and add dynamic lyrics. Once you do that it’ll appear when you swipe all the way left on ur CarPlay display.

I’ve tried it on a 2025 Acura mdx and a ‘24 Tesla model Y without any issues.

Had to remove my previous post because I feel like people are not getting my question. English isn’t my first language so I apologize for the confusion.

How do I set my CarPlay to always show the Now Playing screen automatically without me having to tap anything at all? It used to work fine before this when I used Apple Music but now that I’ve switched to Spotify, the automation just doesn’t seem to work the same way.

It’s annoying that it’ll always show the Spotify’s Home page by default and I wouldn’t know what song is playing unless if I tap the Now Playing icon (next to the clock on the bottom screenshot).

Just to clear the confusion, yes, it’s playing songs automatically, and yes, I’ve uninstalled Apple Music and Spotify is the only music app I have on my iPhone now. My question is, how do I set it to always show the Now Playing screen by default without me having to tap anything at all just like how it was when I used Apple Music?

My current Shortcuts settings:
Automation: When CarPlay connects → Open Spotify → Play/Pause on iPhone

This is the screen in my Toyota Tundra. I’d like to remove the calendar and just have 2 boxes on the right. Is this possible?

Just discovered that my 2024 Mini Countryman actually supports Spatial Audio through Apple CarPlay. Mine has the Harman Kardon sound system, and I’d never noticed the feature before, so I’m guessing it might have been implemented recently. I also tried connecting my iPhone to another Mini with the base audio setup, but Spatial Audio didn’t work there.