For months and months it has been rumored that Apple wants to enter the car sector with its self-driving electric vehicle, but for now the presence of the company in our vehicles is limited to CarPlay. These technology allows you to connect an iPhone to the infotainment system to show maps, media controls, communication apps and more. According to the latest news, however, Apple wants extend the capabilities of CarPlay, to be able to interact more closely with the car.
Apple aims to extend the functionality of CarPlay
Bloomberg reported that Apple wants expand CarPlay, so that it is possible to interact with the vehicle in which it is active. The project, codenamed “IronHeart”, is in the early stages of development. Of course, all CarPlay features depend on partnerships with car manufacturers. However, if Apple is successful, CarPlay may include information such as temperature and humidity, the speedometer and more. Apple also wants iPhone users to have the ability to change their settings.air conditioning, adjust the electric seats and configure the car audio system without leaving the CarPlay experience.
Several years ago, Apple had added APIs that would allow automakers to release their own car control apps to appear within CarPlay. However, these capabilities remained largely unused.
It is currently unclear how welcoming automakers will be about Apple’s new effort, the IronHeart project. It seems unlikely who want to hand over full control of the car’s dashboard to Apple. However, it is possible that several cars decide to only support certain IronHeart features.
What is currently possible with CarPlay
CarPlay right now it allows you to transfer some features of the iPhone to the display of your car. It is then possible to access the directory and make and receive calls; have them read SMS, WhatsApp and messages from other apps to Siri; take advantage of navigation apps such as Mappe, Google Maps e Waze directly on the infotainment display; browse your own library of Spotify or other music playing apps – even podcasts – and manage their playback. It is also possible use Apple’s voice assistant to perform all these functions without being distracted while driving, such as making calls, writing messages, starting maps to a certain destination, etc.
Obviously, in case you have to concentrate on the display of your car, you will have to pull over or wait to be stopped at a traffic light, so as not to endanger your life and that of others.
The other voice assistants
There are also other alternatives to CarPlay such as Android Auto, in case you have an Android smartphone, or Amazon’s Echo Auto. The first allows you to have the mirroring of the basic smartphone functions on your infotainment, just like CarPlay, providing theGoogle Assistant to perform all actions. The second, on the other hand, is a device belonging to the Echo line of Amazon, therefore equipped with theAlexa voice assistant.
Echo Auto is positioned on the dashboard, is equipped with 8 microphones, and allows you to take advantage of Alexa – connected to the Alexa app on your smartphone via AUX or Bluetooth – for various options. You can stream content, find out what the weather will be like, add items to your shopping list, call someone and navigate to your destination.