Car companies haven’t figured out if they’ll let Apple CarPlay take over all the screens

Image: Apple

Apple won't be able to build its own car, so it will have to take over other people's cars.

At its annual event on Monday, the tech giant announced that the next generation of CarPlay will soon break free from the bonds that confine it to the main screen in the vehicle. For the first time, car data will be used to show important driving information, such as speed, fuel level, and engine temperature, as well as allow users to control settings.

Will your car be ready for this new version? Car companies are not.

Most of the major automakers replied with a version of "sounds cool, we're working on it." Apple promised to announce later this year which cars would support the more maximalist version of CarPlay, but it wasn't ready to reveal which car companies were on board. Questions about which automakers Apple was targeting were not answered by a company spokesman.

The case of Apple sending automakers to develop systems that can accommodate its vision for in-car domination could be related. Here is what the automakers had to say.

BMW has placed a clear focus on further enhancing its iDrive user interface system and will continue the seamless integration of Apple'secosystem. The latest innovations announced at WWDC will be evaluated to see if they can be integrated into our solutions.

We don't have anything to share beyond that we plan to support this next generation of Apple CarPlay in future vehicles.

Toyota can't comment or speculate on future products at the moment.

Thank you for contacting us on the next-generation Apple CarPlay story. We don't have anything else to say at this time.

Polestar 2 will get an over the air update later this month. The Polestar cars will be getting the next generation of CarPlay in the future.

The operating system is more of an Apple system for automotive applications. There have been no announcements about that system.

Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, General GM,Hyundai, Nissan, and Honda did not reply to requests for comment.

A number of cars have made software deals with other companies. Ford and Stellantis are both working on design software for millions of future vehicles. The UX of Volvo and Polestar has been turned over to the operating system of the car. Apple hasn't made any similar deals with car makers.

Apple has promised multiscreen interoperability before. The company promised a major update to CarPlay when it came out of stealth in September.

The ability to display information on two different screens at the same time was included. The company said at the time that they could develop a system that showed information in a second screen. That sentence is no longer on the support page.

The cars were still figuring out how to allow Apple to put its display on these screens. It seems like they are still working on it.