7 CarPlay Upgrades That Don’t Require Buying a New Car

The CarPlay screen in most cars is doing the same thing it did in 2019. Maps on the left, a grid of icons, a volume knob you never use because the steering wheel has one. Meanwhile, the phone driving it has been rebuilt twice over.

The good news is that almost everything about that screen is controlled by the phone, not the car. Apple ships CarPlay changes with iOS, so a 2018 head unit running an iPhone on iOS 26 gets the new behavior without a visit to the dealer. Here are seven upgrades worth the ten minutes each, in the order I’d do them.

1. Put widgets on the CarPlay screen

This is the change most people miss. In its iOS 26 announcement, Apple said CarPlay now supports widgets and Live Activities, alongside a redesigned look, a compact view for incoming calls, and Tapbacks and pinned conversations in Messages.

Widgets matter more than they sound. A widget is a small panel that shows information without you opening anything — the next calendar event, the weather at your destination, a countdown, the battery state of something you care about, on a phone, that is convenience. On a dashboard, it is the difference between glancing and tapping, and tapping is what takes your eyes off the road.

Swipe to the CarPlay Dashboard, and you’ll see the widget area. What can live there depends on which of your apps ship CarPlay widgets, which is still a short list — this is new, and developers are catching up.

2. Let Live Activities do the waiting

The other half of that announcement is the one you’ll feel on a long drive. A Live Activity is a running status — a flight, a delivery, a match score, a timer — that updates in place instead of firing a notification every time something changes.

On the road, it’s the opposite of a usual annoyance. Rather than six alerts when the pickup is delayed, there is a singular panel that is silently counting down. There’s no one stopping you from reading the information—it’s just there when you look.

3. Fix the icon order — properly

CarPlay’s app grid is in the same order as the day the phone was set up, which is to say arbitrarily. It can be fixed in 2 minutes with a phone call, not in the car.

Tap Settings » General » CarPlay, select your car, and you will see a drag-and-drop list. The 4 apps that you really use are in the first row: Navigation, Music App, Phone, Messages. The rest can be on page two. Now delete any apps that you will never use while driving — CarPlay’s grid is not a trophy case.

Reordering icons on the car’s screen while you’re parked in a driveway is a pain in the ass, and rearranging them while you’re driving is exactly what CarPlay is supposed to stop you from doing.

4. Give the car a sound when it connects

This one’s small and super rewarding. When using CarPlay, connecting is silent, so if the USB cable is faulty, or the wireless handshake isn’t, you’ll discover something went wrong when the music isn’t playing.

iOS can play a sound when connecting via a Shortcuts personal automation: New Automation » CarPlay » Connects » Play sound. If you don’t want to walk away with the phone still streaming, set it to Disconnect the same way.

Third-party apps package this so you don’t have to build the automation yourself. CarPlay Connect is one — it’s free on the App Store, carries a 4.6 rating from more than 2,600 ratings, and ships 49 ready-made connection and disconnection sounds plus 22 families of widget presets if you want the two upgrades above without assembling them by hand.

5. Go wireless with an adapter if your car is wired

Wired CarPlay would be dependable and a little exasperating: plug it in, pull it out, the cable gets all frayed, the port gets loose. Wireless CarPlay has been sold for years, and if it wasn’t an integral part of your car, you can add a wireless adapter. Insert the dongle into the USB port the car has for CarPlay, connect the phone once, and then it automatically connects when you start the vehicle from then on.

Two honest caveats. With Wireless CarPlay, the phone’s Wi-Fi radio keeps itself occupied, and hence the phone drains more power on a long trip – a charging cable can still be carried – just not for data. And some head units are finicky; ask other owners of your model if a particular adapter works before purchasing it.

6. Turn off the notifications you don’t want read aloud

CarPlay will cheerfully read you out messages from group chats for which you muted in 2022. Go into Settings » Notifications and disable anything that’s not a personal contact for Show in CarPlay.

Navigation is the one that should be kept. The ones to lose are, in my experience, delivery apps, deals, and any group chat that doesn’t get a lot of reactions.

7. If the car has no CarPlay at all, mount the phone properly

However, there will be cars that will never have CarPlay. If that’s not the solution, then the phone should be the head unit, and the mount is the safer alternative than a hazard, as it is a retrofit head unit, which costs as much as a used car component does!

There are only two things between a good setup and a bad one. The mount attaches the screen to the side of your windscreen (vent or dash, not the middle of the windscreen) so that it is outside of your line of sight, but in the periphery of your vision. The phone must be powered and have a way to go into the car’s speakers; a phone speaker cannot beat road noise one time; an aux cable or an FM transmitter can do the trick.

After that, arrange the phone for the car: Driving Focus on auto lock or off while plugged in — depending on which arrangement you can read at a glance — navigation to never black out and the map app in the one arrangement you can read at a glance.

The honest summary

Six of seven have no cost, and none require going to a dealer. The point is: the car’s dashboard is primarily a phone display, and the phone itself receives a major update every year. If the car seems old, it’s probably the configuration.

Frequently asked questions

Does my car need to support iOS 26 for the new CarPlay features?

No. CarPlay does not render anything from the phone, so the iOS version of the phone determines what you will see. The car must support CarPlay at all times; version is the phone’s business.

Why don’t I see widgets on my CarPlay screen?

Two common explanations: the phone hasn’t reached iOS 26, and there’s no CarPlay widget for any of the apps installed on the phone. It’s a new feature, and app support is being added.

Will a wireless CarPlay adapter drain my phone battery?

Consumes more power than a cable, as the phone maintains a Wi-Fi connection with the adapter. If it is a short trip, you won’t notice it; if it’s a long trip, you will.

Can I get CarPlay in a car that never shipped with it?

Not by software. Either replace the head unit with an aftermarket one that includes CarPlay, or use the phone on a proper mount with audio routed into the car.