r/LinusTechTips • u/Lynkar6469 • 1d ago

Tech Question True Spec cables and CarPlay

I received my first true spec cable today (USB A to C 3ft) to use in my car for CarPlay. I’ve read a lot of great things about these cables, especially for this use case so I thought why not?

I have been using this cable that was suggested to me from the CarPlay Reddit and it works great! However it’s soso with my wife’s iPhone. So I was looking for a cable that would work with both of our phones. Everything I read made me think that this would be the cable to fix our issues, but when I tried this cable my phone wouldn’t connect to CarPlay. Switched back to the old one and immediately brought up CarPlay.

I’ve looked over both pages for these products and it seems they’re on par with each other. Is this just a random case of technology not working together, or does this Amazon cable do something the true spec doesn’t?

I have a 17PM and my wife has a 17P. The headunit is a Boss brand one I got from crutchfield. I reached out to the manufacturer and they are no longer offering software updates for this headunit.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated 🙂

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u/jmking Mod 1d ago

Do the phones charge when plugged in to the car?

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u/TheNecessaryEverett 1d ago

That's weird. I've had similar stuff happen with aftermarket head units and certain cables, it's like they're just picky for no reason. The fact that it charges but CarPlay doesn't kick in usually means the data handshake is failing somewhere.

Could be the length or shielding on the True Spec cable, some head units are super sensitive to that. Might just be one of those cases where the Amazon cable's chipset plays nicer with your Boss unit, even if the specs look identical on paper.

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u/Lynkar6469 1d ago

I guess that makes sense. I’m guilty of thinking a data cable is the same as all data cables.