Apple's rumored electric vehicle project has shifted its focus towards autonomous driving systems although that shouldn't be interpreted as Apple abandoning efforts to design its own vehicle, Bloomberg reported today.
After bringing former hardware chief Bob Mansfield back from retirement to run its Project Titan initiative, Apple has now hired BlackBerry and Ford talent to help perfect its secret self-driving software.
Kia Motors Corporation, South Korea's second-largest automobile manufacturer, following the Hyundai Motor, announced this morning that it will be releasing a free software update that will add support for CarPlay and Android Auto to select cars outfitted with an AVN 4.0 navigation system or the UVO3 dash interface, marking a rare instance in which older vehicles will get access to Apple's in-car infotainment system.
Night Shift mode, a new iOS 9.3 feature which helps users get a good night’s sleep by reducing the amount of blue light emitted from a backlight of their iOS device as the sun sets, could be coming to the Mac, the Apple Watch and even to Apple's CarPlay infotainment system, Patently Apple writes.
A trademark application for “Computer software for controlling computer and mobile device display screens,” filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), specifically covers smartphones (the iPhone), computers (the Mac), smartwatches (Apple Watch) and cars (CarPlay) while also mentioning things like styluses, batteries, radios, integrated circuits and even fire extinguishers, which is normal for these types of trademarks.
Apple's infotainment system will be integrated natively into a 2017 edition of Panamera from Porsche, the German automobile manufacturer specializing in high-performance sports cars. The car maker announced this morning that the 2017 Panamera luxury sedan has CarPlay support via a built-in 12.3-inch touchscreen.
In addition to CarPlay, the vehicle will support a new version of Porsche's own Communication Management system with navigation, a voice control system with support for natural language parsing, Porsche Connect and more.
Japanese car manufacturer Honda currently uses Apple's CarPlay infotainment system in the 2016 Accord and Civic, as well as in the 2017 Ridgeline.
Today, the company announced that CarPlay will be returning in the 2017 Accord which will be arriving in showrooms on Monday, starting at $22,355.
Two years ago, we showed you a jailbreak tweak called CarPlay iOS, which allowed you to emulate the CarPlay head unit user interface directly on your jailbroken iPhone or iPad.
Although the tweak was limited due the nature of the features that come bundled in the CarPlay interface, the developer has been working on a treat for those who liked playing with the original tweak; CarPlay iOS 2.0 is now available in Cydia.
BMW still doesn't have any vehicle on the market with integrated CarPlay support, but that's about to change this fall, Bimmerpost said Friday. As the German-language publication gleaned from BMW's official price list, BMW's mid-size luxury crossover models, the X5M and X6M, will have built-in CarPlay when they arrive in August.
Car maker Ford said on Friday that a new Escape model is going to officially become its first vehicle with CarPlay and Android Auto integration. Ford's 2017 Escape puts emphasis on maintaining the quality that made the vehicle an award-winner and the second best-selling Ford product in the United States last year.
In addition to CarPlay and Android Auto, the new Escape also includes a capable driver-assist technology and all-new Sync Connect that supports features like remote start and door locking through the new FordPass platform.
CarPlay, Apple's software platform that integrates some iOS features into the dashboard of select cars, is now available in over a hundred vehicles from nearly two-dozen auto manufacturers, according to Apple's newly published webpage which details CarPlay availability across manufactures and brands.
We knew for some time that Apple was partnering with major vehicle manufacturers in CarPlay, but this marks the first time the company has listed all manufacturers and models with CarPlay support.
Apple has registered a handful of rather interesting domain names within the last few weeks. As noted by MacRumors, the company purchased three top-level domain names in December including apple.car, apple.cars and apple.auto, through sponsored registrar MarkMonitor.
The acquisitions only posted on Whois this morning, and they aren't active yet, but given the ongoing chatter regarding Apple's secret car project, they do arouse curiosity. There's certainly a precedent of the firm purchasing domain names for rumored projects: iCloud and iPhone 4.
Fiat Chrysler on Monday announced its fourth-generation Uconnect system, which will bring Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to select vehicle models later this year. In a press release, the automaker says that the addition of CarPlay will give drivers a smarter, safer way to use their iPhones while in their cars.
"With fourth-gen," said Joni Christensen, Head of Uconnect Marketing, "we are continuing to minimize the everyday stresses of busy lifestyles by providing drivers with a variety of ways to stay conveniently connected to their vehicles, while making every drive exceptionally informative, entertaining and unique."
CarPlay has slowly gained momentum over the last few years, but 2016 might be the year when it really breaks into the mainstream. That's because Ford has announced that all of the Sync 3-equipped cars in its 2017 North American lineup will feature CarPlay as an option.
Ford is offering CarPlay as a part of its Sync 3 infotainment package. Sync 3, at least in the current 2016 lineup, is an available add-on, but every new 2017 Sync 3-capable Ford will at least have the option of being equipped with CarPlay.