CarPlay 2 deserves a reboot for the masses, here’s what that looks like

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Apple’s next generation of CarPlay, often referred to as CarPlay 2, is still nowhere to be found despite a 2024 deadline. Here’s why it’s time for Apple to take a radically new approach and reboot CarPlay 2.

The dream of CarPlay 2 that never came true (yet)

CarPlay 2 was first announced nearly three years ago at WWDC 2022. The premise was essentially ‘CarPlay, but taken to the max.’

Apple explains:

CarPlay has fundamentally changed the way people interact with their vehicles, and the next generation of CarPlay goes even further by deeply integrating with a car’s hardware. CarPlay will be able to provide content for multiple screens within the vehicle, creating an experience that is unified and consistent.

While the idea of an entire vehicle of Apple-designed interfaces sounded nice, it was understandably a challenging sell for automakers.

Years ago, CarPlay adoption in vehicles was a no-brainer for most manufacturers (I’m looking at you, Tesla).

But since CarPlay 2’s introduction, more and more automakers have grown cold on Apple’s system.

Once, the idea of turning over an entire vehicle’s dashboard to Apple was the hard sell for automakers. These days, continuing to support CarPlay 1 at all is no longer a given.

It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that Apple missed its 2024 deadline for the first CarPlay 2 vehicles to arrive.

The tides of CarPlay support have turned, and Apple needs to respond by changing direction itself.

CarPlay 2 deserves a reboot aimed at serving the masses.

Pivoting CarPlay 2 to serve Apple’s millions of current users

Millions of users currently have and love Apple’s first generation of CarPlay.

Yet because of the company’s CarPlay 2 efforts, very little has changed about CarPlay for years. A few small AI enhancements in iOS 18.1 isn’t enough.

Apple can quickly shift direction and change that.

Rather than striving for an idealized, full-vehicle experience with CarPlay 2, Apple’s reboot should focus on making the existing system better than ever.

There’s plenty Apple can do to upgrade the existing CarPlay without needing to get automakers on board.

For example, recent CarPlay 2 leaks show how the system will support adding custom widgets—very much like you can on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Apple could absolutely bring that feature to the existing CarPlay interface, and millions of today’s users would benefit from it.

Whereas if widgets remain exclusive to the full-blown ‘next generation CarPlay,’ almost no one will ever use them.

Even if CarPlay 2 does arrive one day, it will be in very few vehicles—and thus, have very few users.

What about the full ‘next-gen CarPlay’ vision?

Apple doesn’t have to throw out its current, whole-vehicle CarPlay 2 plans altogether.

If it wants to continue working with select makers on custom, full-blown systems, that’s great. I’m sure they’ll be very exciting when they finally ship.

But in the meantime, Apple can start bringing key components of its CarPlay 2 system over to the current CarPlay.

Making this shift would undoubtedly lead to increased customer satisfaction with CarPlay. It could increase brand loyalty too. All of which would potentially give Apple more leverage in negotiations with automakers over the full CarPlay 2 vision.

What do you think Apple should do with CarPlay 2? Let us know in the comments.