Apple has quietly updated its CarPlay microsite which explains the feature to add CBS News Radio to its growing list of apps it grants CarPlay support to, but a bigger change also appears on the CarPlay site this morning. Apple is no longer promising CarPlay support from any automobile manufacturer this year as it has done since its debut in March. While there has been no shortage of CarPlay demoes and availability announcements, actually getting your hands on a model with CarPlay thus far has proven almost impossible.
The site now says CarPlay “will be available” from listed partners without offering any specific timeframe (and removing the 2014 language for specific brands altogether). This is likely due to delays in CarPlay availability thus far, even in models that have announced support earlier this year with cars that are now on the road.
To date, it appears Ferrari’s FF model is the only vehicle to actually ship CarPlay to customers. Automakers Mercedes-Benz and Volvo both confirmed to 9to5Mac last month that despite Apple announcing each company as 2014 partners, CarPlay availability would not happen this year.
Before today’s change, Apple’s CarPlay availability included Ferrari, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo, saying “CarPlay will be available on models from these great marques in 2014.”
You can see Apple’s previous CarPlay availability description below:
The updated site now consolidates a number of brands under the same parent company adding to the vagueness of when and if CarPlay will be available in specific vehicles.
Aside from availability in new models, CarPlay has been promised in aftermarket in-car displays as well with Apple listing both Pioneer and Alpine as committed partners. That language has not changed, but Pioneer stated earlier this year that CarPlay would be available in summer 2014 (later adding early summer availability), but Pioneer customers still have not seen the mentioned firmware update to bring CarPlay support from Apple.
Apple first introduced CarPlay as “iOS in the Car” at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference in June 2013, and rebranded and redesigned the feature under the name CarPlay in March 2014.
Update: Pioneer UK has a couple of interesting tweets about CarPlay support and releasing the firmware update mentioned before.
[tweet https://twitter.com/PioneerUK/status/514488428969611264]
[tweet https://twitter.com/PioneerUK/status/514491315372191744]
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Most car mfg introduce their new year models about 6 months before the start of the next year. The internal go/nogo decision for including Car Play would have been months before that.
im not mad at Apple. i am pissed at companies like Pioneer as a NEX 7000 owner who just wanted bug fixes and the deck to work as advertised.
I know this is a bit unrelated but I hope this CBS thing is a sign that the two are talking (and that we will soon see a CBS channel on the Apple TV).
Isn’t CarPlay sort of a solution in search of a problem? It looks nice but to date i’ve not seen any demos that make me thing this changes the game at all. Nice to have though if you’re buying/leasing a new car.
Example. I just got a new Jeep Cherokee. Uconnect infotainment system + iPhone is, in a word, awful. CarPlay would fix all of that instantly.
CarPlay rollout and commitment has so far been a joke, and this underhanded change to the microsite is just more proof that its mostly vapor.
This is a non story. If you read the text just below the first image that appears on CarPlay page reads that CarPlay will be available on select 2014 models. I think people are reading too much into the redesigned page. This change is meaningless in the context that the entire page was overhauled to emphasis CaPlay features, over partners.
This is a typical move for Apple, promote early adopters, than once that it is established that there is strong parnership, transition to pushing the Apple brand. Apple always wants their brand front and center.
I remember when they first lunched Thunderbolt… Intel, Belken, Sonnet, Western Digital, LaCie were all prominently featured as development partners, once Apple was confidant they had established that their was strong comitment from partner companies offering a wide range of hard drives and accessories they changed the focus bacl to Apple and it’s branding of Thunderboalt.
In fact most pepole don’t know that Thunderbaolt is a joint venture beween Intel and Apple. Infact, most of the R&D for Thunderbolt was done by intel. Today, if you ask, most pepole think Apple developed Thunderbolt all on thier own.
My interpretation of the changes to the CarPlay micro site is that we will see a slew of cars offering car play beginning with the 2015 model year.
Chrysler is really bad with pairing. My wife’s Jeep takes forever to dig through the voice menus.
Ford sync on the other hand is a 10 sec job. You just go to Settings->Phone->Pair and done. For all the flake Ford takes over sync it’s by far the easiest system i’ve used to date and it integrates well with the iPhone. It was buggy at first but the firmware update they released a year ago fixed all the issues I was having.
It would still be nice to have CarPlay but I don’t think you will see large adoption of it until the 2016 at the earliest just knowing the way the car industry works (worked in it for 9 years).
Pioneer.eu are now stating that the Car Play firmware update for their compatible products with be available this Autumn:
APPLE CARPLAY®, FOR THE VEHICLE YOU ALREADY OWN
Easy
Just plug in your iPhone® and Apple CarPlay automatically launches*.
*Apple iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c or iPhone 5 with iOS 7.1, CarPlay compatible Pioneer receiver with the compatible firmware update (coming autumn 2014) and Lightning to USB cable required.
Pretty sure the new 2015 Hyundai Sonata is actually shipping with CarPlay when you select the Nav package (which is an odd requirement). https://www.hyundaiusa.com/about-hyundai/news/Corporate_HYUNDAI_BRINGS_APPLE_CARPLAY_INTO_THE_NEW_2015_SONATA-20140416.aspx
Think it’s the Popular equipment package, but dealers I’ve called have said it’ll require a firmware update down the road sometime despite being announced.
Also.. other than Ferrari, I don’t see any logo’s related to the Fiat Chrysler group (which would normally be Jeep, Chrysler, Fiat, Dodge & RAM) as previously listed as committed partners.
The automakers don’t want to give up that valuable real estate to Apple and Google when they can charge a couple thousand dollars for their own infotainment system.
The next “One More Thing:” Apple made double DIN units that basically run a modified version of Apple TV iOS. It would include 1 TB flash of flash storage, wifi for streaming stored media to various devices and LTE for data services, and obviously hosting the car play features mentioned for the driver. It would be nice to have something that monitored car and engine systems, either by obd II or by hooking into the system that many cars already have in place. I think it would be cool to have a customizable instrument panel, but obviously that wouldn’t come from apple, but by an accessory maker. Pipe dreams, I know, but I sense that Apple might be looking to disrupt this market in some way, hopefully soon.
This is a non story. If you read the text just below the first image that appears on CarPlay page reads that CarPlay will be available on select 2014 models. I think people are reading too much into the redesigned page. This change is meaningless in the context that the entire page was overhauled to emphasis CaPlay features, over partners.
This is a typical move for Apple, promote early adopters, than once that it is established that there is strong parnership, transition to pushing the Apple brand. Apple always wants their brand front and center.
I remember when they first lunched Thunderbolt… Intel, Belken, Sonnet, Western Digital, LaCie were all prominently featured as development partners, once Apple was confidant they had established that their was strong comitment from partner companies offering a wide range of hard drives and accessories they changed the focus bacl to Apple and it’s branding of Thunderboalt.
In fact most pepole don’t know that Thunderbaolt is a joint venture beween Intel and Apple. Infact, most of the R&D for Thunderbolt was done by intel. Today, if you ask, most pepole think Apple developed Thunderbolt all on thier own.
My interpretation of the changes to the CarPlay micro site is that we will see a slew of cars offering car play beginning with the 2015 model year.
The Canadian site still shows the old site https://www.apple.com/ca/ios/carplay/
VW better jump on board or ill be pissed… Im expecting to be pissed lol
As I’m sure you now know, Carplay has been released for the Pioneer NEX aftermarket head units via a firmware update. I’ve loaded the firmware update on my own NEX 8000 in my Subaru Outback, and Carplay is now humming along quite well! Pioneer did a particularly nice job integrating Carplay into the NEX interface, allowing you to seamlessly flip back and forth from Carplay to the Pioneer interface.