General Motors brands like Chevrolet were early adopters of Apple CarPlay, but Apple has never played well with third-party applications. Thus, navigation has been left to the rather ho-hum Apple Maps application.
Not for long, though.
On Monday, Apple announced CarPlay will support third-party applications, including Google Maps and Waze—two well-loved navigation applications. The support will come with the iOS 12 update this fall. The company did not provide specific details, but a screenshot from the Apple conference clearly shows Google Maps, Waze and a Chinese navigation app as part of the system’s future functions.
While it’s excellent news for CarPlay users, we also don’t know if vehicles themselves will need software updates to work with iOS 12. It could mean thousands of GM-vehicle owners piling into dealerships to take advantage of the new features. Hopefully, that won’t be the case. Regardless, we’re excited to ditch Apple Maps sooner rather than later.
Comments
It’s about time Apple started to play nice. But I bet much like third party apps are treated on iPhone, using Google maps on Carplay won’t be as seem less or simple as it is with Android Auto
This was the chief complaint to why more people didn’t care for CarPlay…Hoping if you already have it your GM car, the updates/licensing are forever free…
Dealer installed updates come with a cost depending on brand. Not sure if any GM brands charge owners. But usually you can download the file to a USB/SD card and update in your driveway… Actually now that I think about it, doesn’t the newest GM infotainment (MyLink3?) Offer OTA updates?
Some updates can accept OTA but for whatever reasons, some cannot…The Bolt and Volt both state they can accept OTAs yet both have required dealerships visits if one didn’t want to go the USB/SD route…
BMW is the pioneer turning CarPlay from a standard feature to a subscription…They charge you an up front fee and an annual renewal…I would take a Vegas bet BMW will not be the only automaker to do this and this is the driving force for Apple to allow 3rd party apps that directly compete against their own apps…I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future that Apple turns CarPlay into an annual subscription service regardless what automakers think where you pay apple annually to use CarPlay…
I have had carplay for two years between two vehicles and still leave it off since I hate it…The rare times I’m a passenger in my own vehicle, I’ll try it out again but it doesn’t support any apps I use beyond music/phone/messages and even those are fairly restrictive to what you can and can’t do…I leave Carplay off and use SIRI for most of my iphone needs yet would start to use it for Waze assuming Apple/GM do start charging for it…
From limited exposure to each Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Android auto blow it out of the water. Better/more useful apps, ie Maps. And voice control/assistant is better.
Both my girlfriend and I have company provided iPhones so we’re stuck, and like you, we never use Apple CarPlay.
Nice they are using the Chevrolet Malibu head unit to demo the next generation CarPlay
You took the words out of my mouth
Most GM WiFi vehicles will update. I link mine to the home wireless and check for updates.
The new car play updates should work with no GM updates as car play projects the Apple format.
I just checked tonight for an update.
This is really great, of course, but I will be elated when CarPlay can display TrackAddict too!!!
http://racerender.com/TrackAddict/Features.html
So long as you update to iOS12 and then update Google Maps in the app store, it will work just fine. The only functionality it doesn’t have is being able to use Siri to dictate directions, so you’ll have to open the Google Maps app on the phone and tap the little microphone icon to give the voice command. Other than that, it works flawlessly.
Waze has yet to release its update that will activate it with CarPlay, but I suspect it will do so shortly.
Beware. Used this feature with Waze on a recent road trip and it has crashed my Mylink interface. Mylink has a black screen every 3 or 4 minutes and will not load and nav maps. I feat the SSD drive may be corrupt or have failed.