CarPlay Ultra
Apple (Hacker News, MacRumors):
Starting today, CarPlay Ultra, the next generation of CarPlay, is available with new Aston Martin vehicle orders in the U.S. and Canada, and will be available for existing models that feature the brand’s next-generation infotainment system through a software update in the coming weeks. CarPlay Ultra builds on the capabilities of CarPlay and provides the ultimate in-car experience by deeply integrating with the vehicle to deliver the best of iPhone and the best of the car. It provides information for all of the driver’s screens, including real-time content and gauges in the instrument cluster, while reflecting the automaker’s look and feel and offering drivers a customizable experience. Many other automakers around the world are working to bring CarPlay Ultra to drivers, including newly committed brands Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis.
[…]
CarPlay Ultra provides content for all the driver’s screens, including the instrument cluster, with dynamic and beautiful options for the speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge, temperature gauge, and more, bringing a consistent look and feel to the entire driving experience. Drivers can choose to show information from their iPhone, like maps and media, along with information that comes from the car, such as advanced driver assistance systems and tire pressure, right in the instrument cluster.
Widgets are good, but I don’t like what they’re doing with the instrument cluster and other controls. I worry that at some point Apple is going to strong-arm the automakers into requiring that, if I use CarPlay for maps and entertainment, I also have to give Apple control over the gauges and climate settings. Aside from not liking their designs, I don’t want my instruments to freeze due to an iOS bug, and I don’t want to see a red badge because I’m not subscribed to Apple Music. (Both of these already happen with CarPlay, but at least it’s not right in the middle of the steering wheel.)
This update has traveled a bumpy road with a lot of detours since its initial introduction at WWDC 2022. At the time, Apple said the first car models with support would be announced in late 2023, and named a variety of partners, none of which have yet delivered a product. Aston Martin, notably, was not on that initial list.
The delay may have been caused by the need to work with automakers to assuage concerns about Apple taking over the infotainment experience, effectively turning the car’s user interface into an extension of iOS. No automaker wants its cars to be thought of as iPhone accessories.
So it’s a little late, but by the standards of the auto industry, not too late. It looks really good — Apple’s Newsroom article is replete with photos and videos showing it in action. It feels true to both Apple’s and Aston Martin’s brand identities — but I’d say more Apple-y than Aston Martin-y, simply because the typography is all San Francisco.
CarPlay Ultra (terrible name) looks like garbage. Some of the worst tap targets I’ve seen in any car ever. Like, what is this list? Like, three 2”x2” buttons would have even been better.
We do not want or need SwiftUI in the car lol
This is just wretched.
Sadly, Apple Platforms UI has just become navigation you drill into with lists. This alone captures like 90% of all UX out there on Apple Platforms.
Lists, lists, and more lists. Like Quinn said, this would have been better if it showed layouts one would typically see in a vehicle, not a phone.
This also seems unsafe… they expect you to drill and read labels while you’re driving?
Previously:
Update (2025-05-16): Dimitri Bouniol:
Pretty sure in a WWDC session last year, Apple explained that the instrument cluster is not rendered or streamed from iOS — instead, the phone sends over a package of assets to the car, and the car uses a basic set of GLSL-like commands to render the various instruments live on its own render stack.
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Based upon the Top Gear video that was released at the introduction of CarPlay Ultra, it does indeed look like, at least for the instrumentation UI, that it is packaged and stored on the car itself, not on your iPhone as Dmitri notes.
In the video the host says that the CarPlay instrumentation UI will start up immediately but the centre console CarPlay UI may take a couple of seconds to be available. This infers that the instrumentation UI is stored or at least cached, on the car systems.
When CarPlay Ultra is first enable on a car as well, the iPhone goes through a few seconds setup process, which is probably when the iPhone first copies its instrument assets across to the car systems.
This may also help to mitigate circumstances where the iPhone is bogged down or unresponsive -- in such instances if the instrumentation UI is a contained bundle. run on a more realtime car system -- then iPhone performance or connectivity issues will not affect the instrumentation cluster and therefore not introduce a possible safety issue.
Note that proper hypercar companies; Bugatti, Pagani, the resurrected DeTomaso, have gone all in on analogue dials, and manual gearboxes are making a return for this high end (the rarified space compared to which Ferrari and Lamborghini are vulgar upstarts).
If you look at the secondhand market for "classic" supercars, everything with a trick paddle-shift automatic gearbox is standing still, or going backwards. The folks who bought manual transmissions made the smartest investment decision of the century because cutting edge performance lasts for 6 months, but the sense of occasion at getting into, and controlling a *machine* lasts for ever. That's why everyone loves a steam train.
An analogue dial is a thing of beauty, like a mechanical watch. A digital dashboard is a thing of vulgarity, like an Apple Watch.
