Keep Your Eyes on the Road: 13 Apple CarPlay Tips Every Driver Should Know

Apple CarPlay makes things easier when you’re behind the wheel. By connecting your iPhone to your car's Bluetooth or USB port on supported models, you can rely on CarPlay for driving directions, playing music and other audio, making and receiving phone calls, and responding to text messages.

You can also accomplish most of these tasks by talking to Siri directly, instead of fiddling with touchscreen controls that take your eyes off the road. Apple has beefed up the capabilities of CarPlay over the years by adding new features and eliminating annoying obstacles. Below are some tricks that should help you use CarPlay more effectively.

1. SharePlay with CarPlay

Want to change the music? Let someone else do it with SharePlay. iOS 17 allows the driver and passengers to play and control music in the car over a SharePlay connection. For this to work, everyone must be running iOS 17 or higher on their phones, but only the person who kicks off the SharePlay session needs to have an Apple Music subscription.

Let’s say that you, as the person with the Apple Music subscription, wants to start playing music through CarPlay. A notification should appear on the phones of other people in the car asking if they want to join the CarPlay session. You can also tap the SharePlay icon on the Now Playing screen to display a QR code, and others can scan it with their phones to join the SharePlay session.

You would then approve their request to join the SharePlay session. From there, they can control the music playing through CarPlay from their own phones.

2. Focus on Your Driving

To prevent notifications and alerts from disturbing you, Apple offers an option called Focus. One of the categories in Focus is for driving, which will kick in when you're behind the wheel. To set this up on your iPhone, go to Settings > Focus > Driving and turn on the switch next to Driving.

To allow notifications from certain contacts, tap the People section under Allowed Notifications. Here, you’re able to add or remove specific people and determine whose calls can still reach you. 

Under the Options section, you can set up automated messages to alert anyone who tries contacting you that you’re currently driving. Tap the entry under Turn on Automatically to determine when this Focus should be used.

3. Multitask While Using CarPlay

In the past, CarPlay would simply mirror whatever app was open on your phone, but that wasn’t always helpful when trying to do two things at once. For example, if you had Maps open on your car’s dashboard and someone opened the Music app on your phone, you would lose your directions.

Thankfully, that no longer happens. Your passenger can open any app on your phone, and the dashboard view remains the same.

4. Control Your Dashboard

In older versions of CarPlay, your dashboard could display only one app at a time. If you wanted to see the Maps navigation screen and use your Music player, you would have to bounce back and forth between the two. Now you can split the screen between two or three apps to bring up driving directions in one window, control music from another, and view your calendar in a third..

The dashboard also has three different configurations that you can switch among by tapping the home button. Display your current or last app in full screen, view several apps in split-screen mode, or view the home screen with access to all your apps.

You can also tap on an app to display it full screen and tap one of the icons on the left side of the dashboard to switch to a recent app.

5. Customize Your Wallpaper

Each new version of iOS adds more wallpaper images to paint your CarPlay background. To customize your wallpaper, open the Settings app in CarPlay and select Wallpaper. Tap the image you want to use as your new wallpaper and then tap the Set button.

6. Stay Hands Free With Siri

Ask Siri a question or give it a request, and the voice assistant appears in a small swirling ball at the bottom, the same as on your iPhone or iPad. You can ask Siri to call one of your contacts so you don’t have to peek at your phone. Just say “Hey Siri, call [person’s name].” Siri then places the call, allowing you to talk through your car’s speakers.

Siri can announce new messages so that you’re not distracted looking at the dashboard. To set this up on your iPhone, go to Settings > Siri & Search > Announce Notifications and enable Announce Notifications. Tap CarPlay and turn on Announce Messages, then set how you want Siri to react when a new message comes through.

Siri will even share your ETA with someone else, a helpful addition if you’re running late to an appointment. Just say “Hey Siri, share my ETA with [person’s name].” 

7. Find an EV Charging Station

If you own an electric vehicle, you can get help from CarPlay when it’s time for a charge. Press the Search bar in Apple Maps and type “EV Chargers." Tap the EV Chargers entry from the search results to see a map with the nearest charging stations.

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8. Add More Apps

Apple has expanded the types of apps it supports through CarPlay. You can add compatible apps for EV charging stations, parking, food delivery, and other categories. You can also turn to alternative navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze. 

You can manage the apps available to CarPlay on your iPhone from Settings > General > CarPlay. Tap the name of your car and select Customize to add, remove, and switch the order of available apps.

9. View Detailed Maps

CarPlay is popular for driving directions, so Apple has beefed up its Maps app to deliver more information. While navigating a route, you can see the speed limit, direction, estimated arrival time, 3D buildings, and businesses like gas stations and restaurants.

Siri also gives more specific driving directions these days, such as "Turn right at the next traffic light" instead of "Turn right in 800 feet."

10. Listen with the Music App

The Music app is easy on the eyes when you use CarPlay. Album art is large, so you can more readily identify an album visually. Navigating to your albums and playlists is quick and simple. The interface is intuitive as you can see your album art on the right side of the screen and still use the touch-screen controls for playing music.

11. See What’s Playing

You can quickly see full details on whatever song, podcast, or audiobook is currently playing via an app called Now Playing. The Now Playing app can be accessed from the home screen, or if you're already in an audio app, just tap the audio graph icon in the upper-right corner.

12. View Your Calendar

To view your calendar appointments for the current day, navigate to the home screen and tap the Calendar icon or ask Siri to show you your calendar.

13. Tweak CarPlay Settings

CarPlay offers its own dedicated Settings app through which you can tweak different options—enable or disable Driving Focus, Siri Suggestions, and Album art. There’s also a switch that sets the CarPlay app's color scheme between dark mode and the default light theme.