How to let passengers control music in your car via SharePlay, even if they don’t have an Apple Music subscription
Passengers in your car can control music playback on your CarPlay or Bluetooth stereo after you start Apple SharePlay and approve their request to join. This way, you can focus on driving while your spouse, kids, or friends play something they like.
Things needed
To host a SharePlay music session, you (the person whose iPhone is connected to CarPlay or the car’s Bluetooth) need:
- An iPhone running the latest version of iOS
- An active Apple Music subscription
To join a SharePlay music session, the passenger:
- Must have an iPhone running iOS 17 or later with Bluetooth turned on
- Does not need an Apple Music subscription
Note: In this tutorial, the word “your” refers to the person whose iPhone is being used for CarPlay or is connected to the car’s Bluetooth.
1) Connect your iPhone to wired or wireless CarPlay. It also works if you connect your iPhone to your car’s Bluetooth!
2) Play music on your iPhone in the Apple Music app or open the Music app via the CarPlay screen and play a song.
3) Tap the SharePlay icon at the top of CarPlay’s Now Playing screen. You can also tap the SharePlay icon that’s at the bottom of your iPhone’s Music app’s Now Playing screen.
4) Next, fellow passengers can join your SharePlay session in the car in two ways: via notification or by scanning the QR code. We’ve explained both below.
1) After following the steps above, you’ll see that Discoverable by Nearby Contacts is already enabled. If not, you can turn it on manually. With this setting, your contacts in the car will receive a notification on their iPhone, asking if they’d like to join your SharePlay session. Here’s how the notification appears on my wife’s iPhone:
2) Ask the passenger to tap that notification and hit Connect. Optionally, before connecting, they can also select Edit and change their display name, choose a photo, or remove the photo.
3) After the passenger taps Connect, you’ll get an alert on your iPhone and the car’s screen. Tap the notification on your phone or car screen, then select the green checkmark to approve the SharePlay session.
Your passenger is now ready to control the music in this car.
If the notification doesn’t appear on your passenger’s iPhone, there is nothing to worry about, as you can follow these steps.
1) A QR code will appear after you tap the SharePlay icon on the car screen or your iPhone’s Now Playing screen. Ask the passenger to open the Camera app on their iPhone, scan this QR code, and tap the yellow Music option, followed by Connect.
2) Approve their SharePlay joining request by tapping this notification on your car or iPhone’s screen and then hitting the green check button. If you don’t get the notification, tap the SharePlay icon on your Now Playing screen and accept the request.
Ask the first participant to add more people
The passenger who is already connected can tap the SharePlay icon on the Now Playing screen in their Music app, and others can scan this QR code to join your SharePlay session. You can then approve the request when it appears on the car’s or your iPhone’s screen. It’s the same as what’s explained above.
After joining a SharePlay session, the person can control what’s playing in the car from their device.
1) The passenger opens the Music app on their iPhone and goes to the Now Playing screen.
2) From here, they can use all the regular music playback controls, such as play, pause, next song, previous song, and access the Up Next list of songs.
Note: The passenger can see the Up Next list but cannot go through your Music library and play songs from there. So, if you set a song to repeat on your iPhone, the Up Next list on your phone and the passenger’s phone will be empty. In this case, they cannot play other songs. However, they can tap the three dots icon and Go to Album to play songs from that album or by that artist, and such.
How to know who’s controlling the music
The name of the person who played the song appears above the song title on both the car’s screen and your iPhone. This way, everyone in the car can see whose song choice is playing—a small yet thoughtful detail from Apple.
1) Tap the SharePlay icon on your car or iPhone’s Now Playing screen.
2) Tap X next to a person’s name to remove them from SharePlay.
3) Tap End to stop the SharePlay session.
If a passenger no longer wants to participate, they can hit the SharePlay icon on the Now Playing screen of their iPhone and tap Leave.
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