iPhone owners users will be able to wirelessly stream videos via AirPlay to watch on their vehicle’ infotainment screen, Apple has announced.
“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.”
For safety reasons, AirPlaying videos will only work when the vehicle is parked. Many other carmakers apply similar policies. Tesla, for example, automatically shuts down video-streaming apps like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu or Twitch if the vehicle is not in the park position.
CarPlay will let iPhone owners AirPlay videos while parked
“AirPlay video in the car enables people to watch their favorite videos from iPhone right on their CarPlay display when they aren’t driving,” reads the announcement on the CarPlay page. Owners of electric vehicles will appreciate this feature, especially when sitting in their vehicle while it’s recharging. It’s also going ot be useful for campers and anyone wantign to kill a few minutes of their time while their car is parked.
Video in the car isn’t one of those features that apps get automatically. According to Apple, third-party developers will need to integrate support for CarPlay with AirPlay video to enable the feature in their apps. For legal reasons, the availability of video in the car may vary by country based on local safety regulations.
Apple has not said when this feature will be ready for prime time. When it arrives, iPhone owners who are not jailbroken will finally be able to watch videos from their iPhone on CarPlay. Currently, this is only possible with various jailbreak tweaks.
CarPlay updates coming with iOS 26
Apple also announced during the WWDC25 keynote several updates to CarPlay and CarPlay Ultra coming later this fall with the iOS 26 software update.
As noted in our WWDC25 roundup, both CarPlay and CarPlay Ultra have been revamped with Liquid Design elements. CarPlay now supports widgets and live activities for timely updates (CarPlay Ultra supports widgets by default).
In the Messages app, drivers can now react to chats with Tapbacks and pin frequently-used chats to the top, like on their iPhone. And with a new compact call view, you’ll be able to see who’s calling without an incoming call obstructing your turn-by-turn directions and other key information.