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How to use Apple Carplay?

How to use Apple Carplay?

Available on select cars, CarPlay is a smarter, safer way to use your iPhone in the car. CarPlay takes the things you want to do with your iPhone while driving and puts them right on your car’s built-in display. When you connect your iPhone to CarPlay, you can get turn-by-turn directions, make calls, send and receive messages, listen to music, and more.

How to set up Carplay

There's very little preparation needed to start using CarPlay. Here's what you need to do:

  • Connect with a cable. Connect your iPhone to the car using a standard Lightning to USB cable, like the cable you charge your phone with. Just plug it straight into your car's USB port.
  • Connect wirelessly. Our modules also allow CarPlay to work wirelessly. Here's what you should do.

      1. Press and hold the voice-command button on your steering wheel for around five seconds to make sure that your car is in pairing mode.
      2. Turn on Wifi on your phone but don't connect to anything.
      3. Turn on Bluetooth on your phone.
      4. Connect to our device via Bluetooth.
      5. What appears next depends on the car model. Your infotainment screen should display a message asking if you would like to enable CarPlay, and a similar message may appear on your iPhone. This will enable you to use CarPlay while your phone is locked and stored safely in the vehicle.

Quick tip: After this initial setup, your car and phone should start CarPlay automatically in the future.

How to control Carplay

Once you have connected your iPhone, you may be asking yourself an important question — how are you supposed to control your iPhone with your car?

There are three main ways to control your iPhone through Apple CarPlay, and most CarPlay enabled cars will support all three methods.

  • Siri voice control

    Using Siri with CarPlay is easy. Simply press and hold the voice control button and Siri will respond. You can ask Siri to play music, provide location information and directions, launch and control CarPlay supported applications, make phone calls, listen to voicemails, read books, and read and dictate your text messages. The voice control button can often be found on the steering wheel. If your car has no buttons on the steering wheel, a secondary button should be found on the stereo.

  • Stereo touchscreen

    Almost all cars that support Apple CarPlay include a touchscreen. This is the easiest way to control your iPhone from your car’s dashboard. Simply tap and swipe to get the desired results nearly the same way you would if you were using your untethered iPhone.

  • Stereo controls (such as buttons and knobs)

    Cars that aren’t equipped with a touchscreen can be controlled by the buttons on your stereo. For example:

    • If you have a button setup, there will be an up, down, left, and right button with an OK button in the center. A Menu and Back/Home button will often be just above or below the directional buttons. Press the direction buttons to find selections and control applications. Press the OK button to make selections. Press the Menu button for additional options. Press the Back or Home button to go back a screen and again to return to the main screen.

    • If you have a knob instead, turn the knob left or right to find a selection and then depress the knob to make your choice. To go back to the Home screen, you will either double press the knob, or choose the Home or Back button.

There are multiple options for controlling Apple CarPlay. [Credit: Image courtesy of Apple.com]

How to change your Carplay wallpaper

When it comes to CarPlay, Apple doesn’t let you modify much of the in-car infotainment system’s appearance. Thankfully, as long as you’re running iOS 14 or higher on your iPhone, you can change the CarPlay wallpaper. Here’s how.

Start by going to the Settings app:

From the Settings menu, tap the “Wallpaper” option.

Choose one of the available wallpapers and press Set.

Unfortunately you can’t use your own photo as a wallpaper in CarPlay.

If you'd like to know what's the easiest way to organize apps on the Home Screen, we have a blog explaining that.

How to install Carplay

Upgrading your car’s infotainment system is best left to professionals if you want a quick and clean install. Certified local shops offer infotainment system installation at reasonable prices. You’ll want to get a cost estimate first since the expense varies greatly based on your car’s make.

You can also install it by yourself.

Our Carplay modules are very quick and easy to install as they are Plug&Play.

We simply provide you with the specific tutorial (which you can find by visiting our blogs HERE), and you just follow the basic steps to get your Carplay working! 

A full collections of our Carplay modules can be found by clicking HERE