As Apple continues to work with manufacturers to make CarPlay integral to cars, new apps including EV battery level, a trip counter, and more have been found in the iOS 17.4 beta.
Apple is working with Porsche to customize CarPlay (Source: Apple)
Apple originally gave a quite rare sneak peek at WWDC 2022 of its future plans for an improved CarPlay. Then in December 2023, it showed how adaptable CarPlay will be for different car makers, specifically Porsche and Aston Martin.
Now that the beta of iOS 17 has been released, most of the attention it's had has been focused on all of the App Store changes that are coming for users in the European Union. However, two developers examining the beta's source code have uncovered a total of eight entirely new CarPlay apps.
CarPlay app and alert icons found in the iOS 17.4 beta (Source: Steve Moser)
In alphabetical order, they are:
- Auto Settings -- a System Settings for the car
- Car Camera -- displaying a feed from the car's rear camera (if it has one)
- Charge -- battery level and charging status for EVs
- Climate -- A/C, heating and so on
- Closures -- notification that one or more doors are open
- Media -- radio stations and others including SiriusXM
- Tire Pressure -- including low pressure warnings
- Trips
Calling some of these apps is generous, since the driver is never going to launch the Closures app, for instance. So instead it's practically just a notification, which presumably could be just part of CarPlay instead of a separate app.
The last one, however, is potentially something a driver will use more often. The Trips app works to replace a car's usual display of fuel or battery usage, average speed, plus acting as a trip counter measuring distance travelled.
This data will still be gathered by the car's systems, but this all fits with the aim that CarPlay provides a driver with all of the car's details as well as all of its entertainment and navigation options.
The eight apps were uncovered by Steve Moser and Aaron Perris, of MacRumors.