Google Play Music Carplay Issues
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Google Play Music Carplay Issues
Problem summary
iPhones running iOS 13.3, Google Play Music (active Family Subscription) are apparently extremely buggy with Carplay even when everything is up to date. Music will play but Carplay display freezes, goes blank, crashes, or displays an error message on the Carplay screen when trying to use the app from the CarPlay touch screen.
Possible causes
- Google has lost interest. Comments in Apple's App Store have been complaining about CarPlay issues for the last two years. Lots of rumors that they're phasing it out in favor of a new "YouTube Remix" service, so probably not their highest priority for development effort.
- There could be some CarPlay nuances in iOS 13.3 that manufacturer firmware hasn't been updated for yet. Unlikely since Google Music is the only app having problems.
- Could be an issue with iOS 13.3 and not with Google Play music, e.g. iOS location services conflicting with Google Play's location-based services.
Workarounds/Recommendations
While none of these fully resolved the issue, here's what you can do to make it "sort of" work:
- Use the screen on the phone to control the app in CarPlay. Music still plays fine, the issue is with controlling the app through CarPlay. Of course, this defeats the purpose of CarPlay but you can at least get it working.
- Use a web service like Soundiiz or STAMP to transfer your playlists over to YouTube Music and use the YouTube Music app instead. Oddly enough, YouTube Music seems to work just fine with CarPlay. Even more strange, there's no direct way inside Google Play Music to export your playlists to YouTube Music (even though in theory Google is migrating everything to YouTube Music).
- Of course, there's always the option of switching to a service that isn't tied to Apple or Google, and therefore isn't partial to iOS or Android (e.g. Spotify, Slacker, Napster, Tidal, etc.).
Check our blog comparing Google Play Music and Apple Music HERE