The best CarPlay tips and tricks

for majority people, CarPlay must be. Apple’s in-car experience offers an infotainment experience far superior to most automakers’ options. Quick access to your favorite apps, integration with Siri, seamless connectivity and more. there is

Here are my favorite tips and tricks to make sure you get the most out of your CarPlay experience…

Customize your CarPlay apps and Home Screen

Your favorite apps are probably available in CarPlay, but that doesn’t mean you want them all of them On your CarPlay Home Screen. Thankfully, these options are easy to adjust.

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone
2. Tap on “General”.
3. Tap on “CarPlay”.
4. Tap the name of your car and select “Personalize”.

Here you will see a complete list of all CarPlay apps on your phone. You can simply tap the red minus sign to hide apps from showing up in CarPlay.

You can also rearrange your CarPlay Home Screen while on this page of the Settings app. Simply drag apps into the order you want using the three rows to the right of the app icons.

CarPlay wallpapers

While you can’t use any photo as your CarPlay wallpaper, Apple does offer pre-installed options.

1. Open the Settings app in CarPlay
2. Select “Wallpaper”.
3. Select the desired wallpaper and click “Set”.

apple adds new wallpaper options log into CarPlay from time to time, but there are still a limited number of options available.

Wireless or wired?

CarPlay works both wired and wireless, depending on the make and model of your car. Wired CarPlay generally provides a faster and more reliable experience. When using wireless CarPlay, you may experience some lag when doing things like changing songs and accessing Siri.

Here is my strategy:

• I use wireless CarPlay for quick trips around town when I get in and out of the car multiple times on errands.
• I use wired CarPlay for long road trips where I’m in the car for a long time.

Again, your mileage may vary depending on your vehicle. However, there are ways to bring wireless CarPlay to any car. Here is my personal recommendation CarlinKit 5.0 adapterturns your car’s wired CarPlay app into a wireless experience For under $60.

Dark mode

CarPlay is available in light mode and dark mode interfaces. In the Settings app via CarPlay, you can choose one of three options:

1. Light
2. Darkness
3. Automatic

I use an automatic setting that switches between light and dark modes based on the time of day and other external lighting factors.

Driving Focus mode

One of the most important benefits of CarPlay is that it improves safety in the car by preventing you from taking your phone. First, there’s the Driving Focus mode. It blocks incoming notifications, messages and calls so you can stay focused on the road.

You can customize Driving Focus mode through the Settings app on your iPhone. You can choose to allow notifications from specific contacts and enable an auto-reply feature that sends you a message when you’re driving. You can also choose to enable Driving Focus when automatically connected to CarPlay.

Announce messages

Announce Messages is a popular iPhone feature that works with Siri to read your messages aloud. You can then choose to reply to that message with your voice. The feature works with Apple’s Messages app as well as third-party apps like WhatsApp.

1. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Siri & Search > Announce Notifications
2. Turn on ad notifications and select supported apps
3. In CarPlay, make sure Announce Messages with Siri is enabled in the CarPlay Settings app

SharePlay

If you’re like me, you prefer to control the music while driving. However, if you want other people in your car to be able to queue up songs, CarPlay has you covered.

You’ll see the SharePlay icon in the upper-right corner of the Apple Music Now Playing screen. By clicking on this icon, you will be prompted to create a QR code that others can scan. After they scan this QR code, a pop-up will appear indicating that someone is interested in joining your SharePlay session.

Once that person joins, other people can add songs to the queue, see what’s currently playing, and rearrange the queue — even if they don’t have Apple Music.

With CarPlay in iOS 26, Apple added support for widgets for the first time. Now you can access your favorite iPhone widgets right on your car’s screen.

Here, the app will vary based on your car’s screen size. Some cars allow you to create two “stack” widgets, while other cars limit you to a single stack.

Follow these steps to manage widgets in CarPlay:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Select General.
3. Select CarPlay.
4. Tap on “Widgets”.

Here you can add multiple widgets to your stack and reorder them. There’s also a toggle called “Smart Rotation” that intelligently switches between the widgets in each stack, as well as a “Widget Suggestions” option.

Live Actions

iOS 26 also adds support for Live Actions in CarPlay. It displays Live Actions on your iPhone right on your CarPlay screen. Live Actions is one of my favorite iPhone features, so I’m glad they’re making the transition to CarPlay with iOS 26.

Live Actions are enabled by default in CarPlay, but you can turn them off by going to the Settings app on your CarPlay screen.

Saved Messages

iOS 26 updates the Messages app in CarPlay, including support for pinned messages. However, it proved to be one controversial to change With iOS 26.2, Apple added an option to disable closed conversations in Messages in CarPlay.

Just open the Settings app on your CarPlay screen, then turn off Saved Messages.

Icon coloring

If you want to update your CarPlay interface, there are several visibility modes: Default, Dark and Clear. You can find these options in the Settings app in CarPlay.

Wrap it up

Are you a CarPlay user? If so, what are your favorite tips and tricks? Let us know in the comments.

My favorite CarPlay accessories

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