Apple CarPlay could take over all screens in next-gen cars
Apple has announced what is the biggest update to its automotive smartphone interface - CarPlay. While the current generation of CarPlay can take over your car's (compatible) infotainment screen for mirroring the iPhone's OS and giving you a seamless experience for telephony, entertainment and apps, the next generation of CarPlay is set to integrate deeper with the car's systems and take over all the screens of the cars if needed.
For example, if an updated Mahindra XUV700 or a Hyundai Creta were to take advantage of the next-gen CarPlay, the Apple OS will be able to take control of the instrumentation screen and show customised dials, trip info and in-dash navigation without the carmaker having to develop any of it. Similarly, it can allow you to control air-conditioning, seat ventilation, ambient lighting etc. by integrating directly with the respective control modules. The CarPlay can not only read fuel or battery status but can update the navigation system accordingly to find refuelling or charging stations along the route. Alongside these functions, the new CarPlay will also adapt automatically to various screen shapes and sizes of new generation cars without needing any specific changes to hardware or software. The layouts will be customisable too and will be compatible with Apple's upcoming widget-driven interfaces.
Apple says that more announcements will be made on this front this year and as you would expect, many carmakers are already on board for this new avatar of CarPlay. In my view, it also opens the door for a lot of established carmakers as well as startups, who would simply need to integrate compatible screens with basic infotainment and instrumentation functionally and let CarPlay do the rest. Apple says that 98 per cent of all new cars already have CarPlay, and 79 per cent
of users consider the smartphone integration feature before making a purchase, and that would only mean new CarPlay will shape infotainment systems of the near future.