CarPlay is a few weeks away from turning 10 … depending on when you celebrate its birthday. Apple has already promised a whole new generation of CarPlay will start taking over cars in 2024. Now assets in iOS 17.4 beta show that CarPlay 2.0 really is getting closer to rolling off the new car lot.
Which car will go first? The race is currently between Porsche and Aston Martin. Hopefully next-gen CarPlay comes to other brands with cars that cost less than a bajillion dollars too this year.
Either way, Apple is standing by its statement from June 2022 that the first cars with next-gen CarPlay will hit streets in 2024. As spotted by Joe Rossignol at MacRumors, Apple has belatedly updated its website to update a specific line of text. “Vehicle announcements coming in late 2023” has been replaced with “First models arrive in 2024” on Apple’s CarPlay site.
iOS 17.4 has even more to say about next-gen CarPlay.
Apple tells us to expect iOS 17.4 to officially launch in March. A decade ago, March is also when iOS in the Car was rebranded as CarPlay with the design we have today. CarPlay took another year to actually show up in new cars though. Perhaps we should taper our expectations for cars that aren’t from Porsche and Aston Martin.
As for what iOS 17.4 beta 1 tells us about next-gen CarPlay, 9to5Mac was able to confirm these modern CarPlay app references are present: AutoSettings, CarCamera, Charge, Climate, Closures, Media, TirePressure, and Trip.
Next-gen explorer Aaron (@aaronp613) shared images from iOS 17.4 beta that relate to these next-gen CarPlay apps earlier today:
The graphics team has clearly been busy.
Since CarPlay 2 takes over a car’s digital interface, these apps will be needed for all car functions present in every automaker’s in-house system. Apple is also still making a car, and it’s still four years away.
So that’s it for now. We’re officially moving from the neat pictures phase and into the foundational stage of next-gen CarPlay’s deployment — plus more neat pictures. We’ll keep following this story and give you the latest as it unfolds throughout the year(s).
P.S.
ShrimpApplePro floated this rumor tonight:
"This is not confirmed but I heard CarPlay 2 enabled vehicles to have a custom Apple Silicon chip possibly to handle sensors data and streams to iPhone for better latency and processing. Apple will also take a cut from that Again, not confirmed."
Make of that what you will.
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