Apple Highlights Two Smaller CarPlay Changes on iOS 18.4 and iOS 26

Joe Rossignol
2025-06-12 10:16:00
www.macrumors.com

CarPlay is gaining a lot of new features with iOS 26, including a Liquid Glass design, Live Activities, widgets, the ability to use Tapbacks and view pinned conversations in the Messages app, and more. But that’s not all, as Apple has outlined another change coming to CarPlay with iOS 26 in a WWDC 2025 video for developers.

CarPlay Compact Phone Calls
Specifically, Apple said that iOS 26 will allow CarPlay users to interact with mapping apps using multi-touch gestures in supported vehicles. This will allow users to zoom and pan on the map with their fingers, just like they can on an iPhone.

“Many new vehicles support multitouch interactions, including any vehicle that supports CarPlay Ultra,” said Olivia Hess, a CarPlay software engineer at Apple, in the video session. “Starting in iOS 26, if a vehicle supports multitouch interactions in CarPlay, drivers can interact with your navigation app using multitouch gestures.”

In the video, Apple highlighted another small but useful improvement to CarPlay that is available with iOS 18.4 and later: a sports mode for audio apps.

CarPlay Now Playing Sports Mode
CarPlay apps that stream audio for live sports events can now show a scoreboard for the game on the CarPlay screen, right alongside controls for the audio feed. The revamped Now Playing view can show team logos, scores, the game clock, and more.

iOS 18.4 was released in late March, while iOS 26 is currently available in developer beta and will be released to all users later this year.

Earlier today, we reported that CarPlay will also be gaining the ability to play videos from an iPhone via AirPlay in supported vehicles.

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