Apple CarPlay Ultra, the Cupertino tech giant's next big play to run more car features off of an iPhone, finally released last month in North American models of Aston Martins. Other Aston models will be getting it through an update soon. Know who won't be getting it? A lot of the brands that Apple first announced for CarPlay Ultra back when it was first revealed in 2022.
Per reporting from the Financial Times, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Polestar, Renault, and Volvo are no longer planning to incorporate the feature into their cars, even though all of them were featured in Apple's WWDC 2022 presentation. Meanwhile, Jaguar Land Rover is still merely "evaluating" CarPlay Ultra, and Ford, Nissan, and Infiniti declined to comment. That's 10 out of the original 14 listed brands now leaning away from Apple. Oof.
What's going on here? Well, one possibility is that as cars increasingly become defined by their software, carmakers want to be able to distinguish their user experiences from one another, rather than all become standardized as "iPhones with wheels." Another is that future revenue growth may be wrapped up in extra service features bespoke to the brand, not Apple. Then there's the fact that manufacturers do get precious about their vehicles — as a Renault executive apparently put it to Apple, with typically French directness, "Don't try to invade our own systems."
Where Apple CarPlay lets you interact with your iPhone's messaging, maps, and music from the car's infotainment display, the new Ultra version can let your phone access some of the car's own basic functions. Ever wanted to change the cabin temp using an Apple UI? Actually, that's probably not something you've ever thought about, but now you can. More importantly, CarPlay Ultra can take over the gauge cluster screen, giving you some customizable options for your speed and rev counters. It also will let you throw maps or music there, which is a nice quality of life improvement.
The question is, how well does that Apple UI actually mesh with the car's own aesthetics, particularly with high-end luxury brands? It may be a matter of taste, but arguably the Apple look would just be off in, say, a Mercedes S-Class. Carmakers can make custom templates to work with CarPlay Ultra, as Aston has already done; indeed, its aesthetic clearly fits the car more directly. But if maintaining the right look and feel is a priority, maybe it's better to just not offer CarPlay Ultra in the first place.
In its press release for the Aston Martin debut, Apple dropped a few new names into the mix, specifically some Korean brands: Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. The FT also says that Porsche is still actively working on the feature, and some of the original brands may end up just being stragglers rather than abandoning the product outright. Of course, a lot will depend on how much buyers care about the Ultra version vs the basic CarPlay that every iPhone owner already uses (which just got a major update of its own). If Ultra becomes a must-have upgrade, expect carmakers to bend the knee to Cupertino.
To reach that status, Ultra may have a few kinks to work out. According to Road & Track, an iPhone running CarPlay Ultra gets hot to the touch after just a few minutes and loses battery charge even if on a charging pad. In other words, the iPhone has to work really hard to run all those screens, which kills battery life and might be unhealthy for the phone if it's too hot for too long. Possibly even worse, the speed and rev counters were apparently just a bit laggy in Ultra. Not great! If Apple can't get these issues handled fast, drivers might well wave off of Ultra altogether. And of course, if a driver happens to have an Android phone, the presence or absence of this feature doesn't even matter in the first place.