CarPlay Ultra’s adoption keeps hitting one roadblock after another. German automaker BMW has decided against integrating CarPlay Ultra into its vehicles.
Instead, BMW will focus on bringing its revamped iDrive experience to its future vehicles.
No CarPlay Ultra for BMW vehicles
Since its launch in 2014, CarPlay has gone on to become one of the most popular and convenient ways to connect your iPhone to your car’s infotainment system. This provides users with easy access to navigation and music streaming apps.
At WWDC2022, Apple unveiled CarPlay Ultra, a much more ambitious version of CarPlay. It would take over your car’s instrument cluster and display metrics like speed, engine RPM, and even let you control the AC and other functions.
Despite the promise, CarPlay Ultra adoption has failed to take off.
Three years after its announcement, Aston Martin became the automaker to roll out next-gen CarPlay support on its vehicles. But other automakers are not on board with the idea of letting Apple invade their vehicles’ systems. A report even revealed that Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Polestar and Renault will not use CarPlay Ultra, despite showing interest initially.
BMW has now also confirmed to BMW Blog that it has “no plans to integrate Apple CarPlay Ultra.” Instead, the company looks forward to releasing its new iDrive system later this year.
Slow road ahead for CarPlay Ultra adoption
Unveiled at CES 2025 this year, iDrive X will debut on the upcoming BMW iX3 and then expand to all future Neue Klasse models. Besides the displays on the dashboard, iDrive X can even project information on the windshield. And to promote iDrive X, BMW will limit CarPlay and Android Auto to the main screen of its vehicles.
While BMW hasn’t shown interest in CarPlay Ultra, major automakers like Aston Martin, Porsche, Hyundai, Land Rover, Kia, and Ford have committed to supporting it. The real question is: when will these automakers actually launch vehicles with CarPlay Ultra support?
Rajesh has been closely following and writing about the latest happenings in the world of mobile for nearly a decade now. While he prefers Android, he does not deny the superiority of Apple’s products and ecosystem.
