Apple Still Working on ‘CarPlay 2.0’ — But Should It Bother?

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Although Apple missed its promised 2024 deadline for its next generation of CarPlay, there’s every indication that the feature is still coming — it’s just taking longer than expected.
Apple may have been a bit too ambitious with its timing. After all, “CarPlay 2.0,” as it’s been colloquially dubbed, isn’t like standard CarPlay, where automakers merely have to provide a compatible window into a screen presented by a user’s iPhone. The next generation of CarPlay aims to integrate in-car systems like the radio and climate control into the experience and even go so far as to take over the vehicle’s dashboard with a customizable Apple-designed user interface.
Apple first announced the new CarPlay initiative during its 2022 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). At the time, it recognized this wouldn’t happen overnight as it required a fundamental upgrade to in-car systems — this wasn’t something carmakers could retrofit. Nevertheless, it promised the first vehicles to get the new CarPlay 2.0 would be announced by the end of 2023.
Sadly, by mid-2023, it looked like Apple’s vaunted list of partners was thinner than expected. Initially, Apple had said it was working with Ford, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti, Honda, Acura, Jaguar, Land Rover, Audi, Nissan, Volvo, and Porsche, among others. However, when asked about their plans, most of these companies had nothing to say. Only BMW, Volvo, Polestar, and Mercedes-Benz said they were even considering the new technology, and none of them guaranteed it would ever show up.

Still, Apple arguably met its 2023 deadline in the nick of time, as Porsche and Aston Martin previewed the new interface to Car and Driver. However, the tech was conspicuously absent on their respective 2024 models, and their 2025 vehicles haven’t exactly pushed the limits. Porsche’s 2025 Taycan has a sort of “CarPlay 1.5” where the iPhone CarPlay interface can access and control in-car systems, but it’s still boxed into the infotainment screen.
That’s only a small part of “the ultimate iPhone experience for the car” that the next generation of CarPlay promises to deliver. The significant piece that’s still missing is “content for all the driver’s screens, including the instrument cluster.” In other words, CarPlay 2.0 aims to become your digital dashboard.

At first glance, it’s easy to understand how Apple is having a hard time getting buy-in from carmakers who prefer to present their own custom experience rather than one designed by Apple. However, Apple knows this, and it’s pitched CarPlay 2.0 to automakers as a unique experience that can be custom-designed for each vehicle brand — and that’s what’s taking longer than Apple expected.
Gurman touches on this in his latest Power On newsletter, where he reports that Apple is still working with automakers on this, but it’s going more slowly due to the design issues and likely the back-and-forth involved in tweaking the interface to each company’s preferences.
The hiccup with the new CarPlay is that the system is designed to require a bespoke interface for each car it supports. It’s not exactly plug and play like the current CarPlay. Apple and each carmaker have to sit down together and actually design a unique interface.
Mark Gurman
However, Gurman adds that there’s still resistance from some automakers, many of whom don’t see any benefit to the system — even if Apple is willing to create a tailor-made version just for them.
What incentive do the carmakers have to do this? The new CarPlay mostly benefits Apple and gives the company a stronghold in any vehicle that uses the software. Many automakers are loath to hand over their center consoles to a company that spent $10 billion trying to design a car that could replace them.
Mark Gurman
Last week, the folks at 9to5Mac reported that code in the latest iOS 18.3 beta shows that Apple hasn’t given up on CarPlay 2.0. New references in the Maps app that weren’t there in the prior beta show that Apple’s development team is working on displaying information in vehicle instrument clusters and controlling the air conditioning systems in more types of vehicles.

Nevertheless, the flip side is that it’s January 13, and Apple’s CarPlay page still says that the “First models arrive in 2024.” While it’s likely that premium carmakers like Porsche and Aston Martin will continue with their plans for CarPlay 2.0, more mainstream carmakers have been so dead quiet that this looks like it will be a niche feature, at best. Gurman believes that, as it currently stands, CarPlay 2.0 “will be a dud” and suggests that Apple should focus on improving the current interface instead of struggling to occupy the dashboards of reluctant carmakers.