What’s new with Apple CarPlay iOS 15?

As part of Apple’s yearly roll-out of updated features and technology in the wake of the new Apple iPhone 13, the new iOS 15 software incorporates additional functionality for Apple CarPlay.  

It hasn’t been the smoothest of launches, with plenty of reports that new iPhone 13 customers have experienced a series of bugs related to the in-car smartphone mirroring tech. But on the plus side, Australians don’t have to do much to get the new version of CarPlay.

Basically, all you have to do is update your iPhone to the latest iOS 15 firmware by navigating to your phone’s general settings and selecting to download the latest version. The next time you plug the freshly updated iPhone into the car, or connect wirelessly, the changes will appear automatically.

It’s a small update retaining a great deal of the previous version’s user interface, but there are some new features and subtle tweaks worth mentioning.

Focus is an all-new iPhone mode that replaces the previous Do Not Disturb setting. It works irrespective of whether your phone is connected to the car, and is incorporated into CarPlay to replace the Do Not Disturb While Drive feature.

Focus is a highly customisable mode that essentially decides when you should receive certain notifications, be it when driving, sleeping, working or exercising. Users can configure Drive Focus to switch on at various points, including when you connect to your car’s Bluetooth, when the phone is connected via Apple CarPlay, or when switched on manually.

The function restricts notification-based communications by their level of importance. For example, when driving it might be preferable to only allow calls, or other notifications when they are from a specific person.

You can now have Siri automatically read incoming text messages aloud while you’re driving, whereas before you’d have to interact with the software on the car’s infotainment screen. This is designed to reduce driver distractions.

Also available with AirPods, CarPlay users can enable Siri Announce Messages to receive and respond to phone messages completely hands-free.

Apple Maps hasn’t changed much in terms of presentation, but information is taken up a notch with significantly enhanced detail including elevation, trees, landmarks, and more.

This is best viewed in the three-dimensional city-driving display, which better helps users understand situational context. The new detail incorporates turning lanes, median strips, bike lanes and pedestrian crossings.

Due to the amount of work involved in putting this extra detail into the maps, only large cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and London will get the technology at first.

Though it is small, four new wallpapers are included in the latest version of Apple CarPlay. The new designs borrow the look from the default backgrounds of iOS 15 devices, and each has a light and dark mode that CarPlay can automatically switch between depending on the time of day.

It’s not the first time Apple has allowed the use of your phone as a car key, but iOS 15 does bring some improvements to the feature. Thanks to the ultra-wideband U1 chip, CarKey enables users to unlock, start, and drive your car without the need of a physical key.

The new functionality means you can now do all of the above actions without having to take your phone out of your pocket. It also ensures that you won’t be able to lock your iPhone in your car. This technology does require cooperation from car manufacturers, with BMW being the first partner to include the tech in its line-up of models.