It means that along with core car features such as Aston Martin’s on-screen speedometer and tachometer dials, you can also have your Apple Music playlist or Google Maps directions in front of you as you drive. Things like tire pressure monitors and air-con controls will also at last be able to sit within the CarPlay interface.
This is all supposedly fully customizable though, from the instrument cluster theme down to the color scheme, offering both car brands and drivers the ability to build and curate their own multi-screen setup for the things that matter most to them while driving.
Of course, if you prefer physical buttons, they’re still available for functions provided the car in question has them already, of course. Siri will again be on hand when you prefer to bark commands at a voice assistant. However, how next-generation Siri will precisely work in CarPlay Ultra, as Apple’s AI tech develops, remains unclear—but from launch, essentially, the tech mirrors the phone experience. That means if you have ChatGPT-powered Apple Intelligence enabled on your iPhone, the in-car UI will ask for a voice command to shunt a query to Open AI’s model or stick with on-device Siri.
Conversely, in what could be seen as unfortunate timing for Apple, Google beat the news of CarPlay Ultra to the punch, with the announcement of Gemini for cars just a few days ago—and we’ve already got more detail on how Gemini will enhance the driving experience than we have on Siri at this point.
This includes helping you craft text messages on the go, find good restaurants en route, and even help you brainstorm on the way to a meeting. Gemini will roll out to Android Auto cars over the next few months, likely appearing in myriad car brands well before CarPlay Ultra.