Rumors of CarPlay Video in iOS 26 Aren’t What You Think
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This week’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has revealed all sorts of new goodies coming to the iPhone in iOS 26 that go well beyond what Apple showed us during Monday’s keynote. In addition to a collection of 36 smaller features that Apple only revealed on a single slide at the close of its iOS 26 presentation, the first iOS 26 beta, Apple’s WWDC sessions, and its developer website have revealed even more fun new things coming in this year’s big iPhone software update.
For instance, shortly after firing up the iOS 26 beta on my iPhone on Monday evening, I opened Apple News to be greeted by a new Emoji Game. Fiddling with CarPlay in iOS 26 also revealed a new Smart Display Zoom mode that makes much better use of the nine-inch display in my Nissan Rogue.
Along similar lines, a Redditor discovered a potential new CarPlay feature this morning from Apple’s developer site, excitedly announcing the “Video in CarPlay [is] Now Officially Supported.” That certainly got our hopes up — and those of many other folks, too, but on closer examination, it’s probably not the kind of video support we’ve all been dreaming of.
Video in CarPlay
As I wrote about four years ago, Apple is very strict about the apps that can appear on your CarPlay screen. For an app to appear on your dashboard, it has to fit into a specific category and follow other rules about how it presents its information. It also needs a special “entitlement” from the App Store to unlock CarPlay access, which Apple only grants if it meets the criteria.
Apple allows categories for Audio, Communication, EV charging, Fueling, Navigation, Parking, Quick Food Ordering, and a few other apps related to “driving tasks,” such as toll support and towing help. The apps must also “provide meaningful functionality relevant to driving” and present an interface that won’t distract the driver.
You’ll notice that video apps are nowhere on this list. That’s partly because Apple doesn’t want to be blamed for car accidents caused by drivers who were paying more attention to the latest episode of Severance than the road.
Of course, Apple could easily make these work only when the car is stopped. Android Auto allows video apps, and that’s precisely how it works — they’ll only play while the vehicle is stationary. Apple’s CarPlay already detects this and disallows distracting functions like the keyboard while the car is in motion. It wouldn’t be a stretch for Apple to take a page from Google’s books and allow video apps under similar conditions.
Sadly, I’ve dug deeply into iOS 26 and found zero evidence of any support for this, so it’s not simply screen mirroring as some have been hoping. There’s already at least one third-party app, TDS CarPlay, that can do this. It lived on the App Store briefly before Apple turfed it, much like it did with a CarPlay web browser app earlier this year, but it’s still in TestFlight beta. Anyone with an Apple Developer certificate can also download and side-load the IPA.
Of course, this is beta 1, so there’s always hope it could come later, but nothing on Apple’s website or in its developer documentation suggests that will happen — at least not this year.
Of course, if Apple were going to allow apps to play video through CarPlay, it would be more likely to add them as a new category, requiring them to have an appropriately optimized interface. They’d then appear on the CarPlay screen like Google Maps and Spotify do. We wouldn’t see this in the iOS 26 betas, as it would be a developer SDK. However, Apple has said nothing about this during its WWDC sessions or on its developer website, and no related APIs for CarPlay video apps have been announced. That makes native CarPlay Video apps very unlikely.
So What Is This Then?
The reference that’s getting everyone excited is found on Apple’s CarPlay Developer Page, where Apple lists a new Video in the Car feature under “Additional capabilities.” However, it doesn’t read like a software feature, and the mention of AirPlay leads us to believe it’s something quite different from simply playing videos on your CarPlay screen straight from your iPhone.
AirPlay video in the car enables people to watch their favorite videos from iPhone right on their CarPlay display when they aren’t driving. Integrate support for CarPlay with AirPlay video to enable this feature in your car.
Since this is a developer page, the reference to “your car” doesn’t mean cars belonging to iPhone users. The fact that it’s used in a sentence about integrating “support for CarPlay with AirPlay video” lends weight to that, as does the section it appears in.
“Video in the car” is sandwiched in between “Automaker apps” and “Car keys,” both of which are hardware features that need to be added by carmakers, not software developers. Automaker apps may be software, but they’re written to integrate with specific vehicle hardware sensors and other systems.
Apple concludes with an invitation for those interested in supporting any of these features — including AirPlay video — to learn more about its MFi program. That’s a program for hardware accessory makers to integrate with the iPhone, and includes everyone from companies developing home accessories and speakers to cars and fitness equipment.
AirPlay in the Car
Putting all this together with my intimate knowledge of Apple and how it operates, it’s not hard to make an educated guess that this is more about making vehicle infotainment systems work with AirPlay the same way your television set does.
In other words, supported vehicles would simply present themselves as an AirPlay destination, the same way nearly every car on the market offers Bluetooth for audio.
There are pros and cons to this approach. On the upside, native AirPlay support means that every app on your iPhone or iPad could stream to your in-car display. Developers wouldn’t have to do anything special with their apps — it would all just work as seamlessly with your car as it does with your TV. Plus, anyone in the vehicle could stream to your dashboard via AirPlay, although Apple would presumably have some settings to control who could do that.
It’s a move that fits with how Apple typically rolls. In iOS 17, Apple made a similar move with what I’ve affectionally dubbed ”CarPlay Karaoke” — a mode where anyone in the car can contribute to a shared playlist. Direct AirPlay support would do something similar for video.
Of course, that’s not a direct parallel. If Apple followed the same playbook, it would allow the driver’s iPhone to operate as an AirPlay Receiver and transmit the signal from there. However, nothing on Apple’s Developer Page suggests it will do that. It would also be more problematic than native AirPlay support since an iPhone connected via Wireless CarPlay would need twice the Wi-Fi bandwidth to receive and retransmit the signal. Besides, unlike the SharePlay Music feature, this is about streaming single videos, not contributing to a road trip playlist.
This brings us to one of the most significant downsides. In addition to the fact that this won’t automatically be available on older vehicles, it’s also very likely going to require on-board Wi-Fi.
As things stand now, AirPlay is a network protocol that typically runs over Wi-Fi (hence the use of the word “Air”). Apple would have to re-engineer things to drive it over a USB connection to CarPlay. That’s not impossible, but I’m not holding my breath. The company likely believes that Wireless CarPlay is the future (and to be fair, after using it for the past four years, I know I’m not going back to a wired connection).
The biggest question is whether existing vehicles could be retrofitted with AirPlay support via a software update. That certainly seems possible — many TV makers did the same when nearly every smart TV began embracing AirPlay a few years ago — and any vehicle with CarPlay support already has the necessary authentication chips and other hardware to communicate with an iPhone. AirPlay is just another protocol that runs on top of that, but whether carmakers will make the effort is another matter.
