Hello! I am curious if anyone else has encountered a similar challenge and might have a solution. I drive a 2019 Toyota with wired CarPlay, and I have a iPhone 13 mini. About two weeks ago, CarPlay stopped working. In the past I have had a similar problem, and either reconnecting the phone, and/or restarting the car have fixed the connection. However that is not the case this time.
I first updated my car’s infotainment firmware, then I updated my iPhone to iOS 15.7.1, and then I updated to 16.0.2. Each time I tried connecting again, but I had no luck. Chatting with Apple Support they suggested restarting the iPhone following the steps in this article. A quick press and release of the volumen up button, followed by a quick press and release of the volume down button, followed by holding the side button until I saw the Apple logo seemed to work, but then moist things quit working. Right now, I still do not have CarPlay, but my car sees my iPhone as an iPod and will play any audio.
I intend to follow up with Apple again, but I am in the midst of some urgent family health situations, so I just haven’t had time to diagnose the way I would ordinarily do it. Has anyone encountered anything similar in your experience? Thanks in advance!
Edit: I completely forgot, I really think it is my phone, because I am able to easily connect CarPlay when borrowing my dad’s iPhone mini 12, borrowing my mom’s iPhone 13, or my old first generation iPhone SE I dug out of a box.
My wife had wired CarPlay in a 2020 Honda Pilot, it would work but started having trouble between her phone and mine. And we got a new cable and it worked great. Also try pulling the lighting cable out of the phone flip it upside down and put it back in. Would be interesting to find out what the issue is.
CarPlay is incredibly fragile when it comes to the connection. Cables that work totally fine for charging and seem to be in decent shape will cause all kinds of problems that will drive you mad and you tell yourself “there’s no way it’s the cable”, and then switching cables fixes it.
Do clean out the lightning port, but also try a new cable.
Occasionally my CarPlay won’t work (2020 Jeep Wrangler/iPhone 13 Pro) and usually unplugging, plugging back in or the old Nintendo trick - remove cartridge, blow on it, reinsert cartridge, usually works. My cord is probably about due for replacement as well.
I drive a Honda CR-V 2018 and I’ve noticed recently that my CarPlay stops working as well. The car still ‘sees’ my phone as the CarPlay icon is still accessible from my Honda Home Screen. However, the display will go blank and there is no audio. I’m using an Apple cable that recently replaced an anker cable that had died. I will try cleaning out the lightning port but I wonder if it is iOS 16.
If this has only really manifested since you swapped cables, I’d be tempted to try another Lightning cable. It’s possible that the replacement Apple cable you have is not of sufficient quality (wear and tear) to do the job.
I should have been more specific. I was starting to have issues with the anker cable. Once I swapped it for an Apple cable, problem solved. This was many months, maybe even a year, before the update to iOS 16 and the ensuing issues. That said, it is worth it to swap the cable again, clean out the port, or even have honda see if there are any updates to the system on their end.
I hate typing on my phone and so I got a bit lazy in my original post. Sorry!
Yeah, I’m glad I heard about the lag in wireless CarPlay. I hadn’t even anticipated this issue until I first heard about it on ATP. My 2018 Honda CR-V screen is laggy enough as it is, I couldn’t bear any more lag! Hopefully automakers will catch on that society’s expectations for responsive screens has been upped significantly due to its now ubiquitous nature. But judging at how slow they move, maybe in another 7 years??
I own a Honda CRV 2017. I always had problems with (wired) CarPlay, despite trying different cables, genuine apple or otherwise, including Anker. I would have to unplug and replug the phone, or not infrequently reboot the head unit. Ultimately I purchased the Ottocast U2 Air, based on reviews that said it was the least laggy of the many available dongles. I’ve been very happy with the purchase. CarPlay is always rock solid and any delay when in use after the initial boot-up (which is only as long as the time it takes for me to get out of my garage and onto the road) is minimal, even with phone calls. The experience may not be as good on other car models but I have been very happy with my purchase.
Interesting! I looked them up and found several similar products, but little information about the technical differences. What was it about the model that you bought that made you choose it over the others?
Maybe just my paranoia, but would this effectively be putting a 3rd party between the phone - with its contents - and the CarPlay interface? Any privacy implications? Again, not sure it’s even feasible to ‘hack’ into the phone…but it makes me a little uneasy.
Not to mention receiving updates down the line. But I guess same could be said for how well Honda (or any manufacturer) will be supporting older vehicles.
I haven’t looked into how CarPlay works, so take this with a grain of salt and as (reasonable) speculation:
CarPlay is more or less a UI extention for apps to be able to diaplay (and repspond to) UI elements on a car’s screen (and also to be able to stream media and use the car’s mic for phone calls/Siri). Unless Apple designed this in a very silly way, I don’t think there’s much security or privacy risk involved. Depending on how the protocol is implemented, the device itself might have access to the contents of the data being sent between your car and phone, but the device has no network access of its own and so can’t really do much with it.
What the device could do if the manufacturer were malicious, is to allow connections over WiFi from other nearby computers/phones/whatevers, but that would be almost impossible to hide and also serve no real purpose. I think that it’s unlikely to be doing that deliberately. (Whether or not it could be leaking informaiton unintentionally goes back to whether or not Apple took that into account when designing WiFi CarPlay, but that’s a problem for all such devices, third party or built into the car.
Finally, WiFi does not have the same attack surface as USB, so what the device could do to your phone is much more limited than what something can do to your phone if you plug it in via USB/Lightning. That’s why you have to tell your phone to trust the thing you’re hard-connecting it with the first time you connect it.
It’ll be a cold day in Hell before Honda ever develops an upgrade path for their wretched infotainment systems In theory they could release updated software, but car manufacturers in general tend to use very, very underpowered computers for their infotainment systems.
Thank you to all of you who have made such great suggestions! Apologies for my delayed response! I have had a very challenging couple of weeks in my personal life, but I appreciate all of your help. I
had not thought of cleaning out the lightning port with a toothpick. I proceeded to clean things out, try three different cables, and still nothing. In fact at times, the car would see the phone as an iPod plugged in via USB and at other times as nothing at all. I kept plugging the phone in since I have been driving and using my phone a lot and wanted to charge my phone while I traveled.
About two days ago, things started working again randomly. I have no idea why. I have only tried using Anker cables, so if this happens again I will try with an Apple cable and see if I get any different results.
Even with the challenges with Car Play it’s still pretty cool. I don’t have it in my car, the wife has it in her car and I love using it in her car. My car is too old to put it in and not worth it. But my next car will have it. Hopefully they keep working out the problems. How do people like wireless Car Play, anyone have it?
In theory they could release updated software, but car manufacturers in general tend to use very, very underpowered computers for their infotainment systems.