I’m fully bought into the Apple ecosystem, and I’ve had Teslas for 8 years and we currently also have car that supports CarPlay. The CarPlay interface is overall far inferior, especially with navigation. First of all, searching for destinations is terrible on CarPlay compared to Tesla! Even worse, Apple didn’t even add multi-touch support to CarPlay until iOS 26, and the vast majority of cars (including ours) don’t support it, so you have to hunt for and tap the zoom controls, which is pretty barbaric compared to the fluid pinch and zoom gestures that work on Tesla and our other devices. Also on our CarPlay car, it never seems to know the direction the car is facing until it starts moving, which becomes incredibly frustrating navigating out of a parking lot. The final major downside is having to switch apps out of navigation to control music then switch back, whereas on Tesla (and Rivian) you can choose and control music while keeping navigation on your screen.

I have a boring Mercedes mid-size SUV. Carplay works. I can skip/repeat tracks using the standard control on the steering wheel; the instrument cluster shows the current track the same way it's done with connected phones forever. On the center console screen, we use the Carplay view with 3 splits - one for Spotify, two for navigation (map & next direction). Google Maps and Apple Maps are both reliable where I drive (Miami).

Tesla is a great car below the from the headlights down, I love driving my dad's Y performance to the grocery store when I'm visiting home. But no way I'm going to get a car where I can't point the vent at my armpit without using a touch screen. No way I'm going to get a car where I can't talk to whatever agent I want while stuck in traffic. I much rather have a boring car that doesn't tick me off.

If Tesla (or Rivian) add Carplay, they'll really move up the my list (still want physical vent control tho). Would you stop driving your Tesla if an update added Carplay tomorrow?

> The final major downside is having to switch apps out of navigation to control music then switch back,

But... you don't. Tapping on the home button once more or swiping to the right on the app page reveals the home screen which has navigation and music together:

https://devimages-cdn.apple.com/wwdc-services/images/D35E0E8...

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/wgH6RZrtKkuAQkJUjfWW8V.jpg

It even adapts to vertical screens:

https://i.redd.it/n7e0st8ebyh81.jpg

“Searching for destinations on CarPlay”

I think this is the difference for me - I’ve decided where I’m going before I get in the car. Either I’ve planned a route (on my phone) or got a destination through a message from a friend on LINE. Either way I already have a plan.. on my phone. So having to somehow get that into the car navigation is always going to be worse than just using my phone

I have a Polestar 2, 2022 model even so it's not fresh off the lot.

CarPlay navigation shows on the instrument cluster. The speed, state of charge, etc all move to the side so the map is right in the middle for quick viewing. Then the infotainment screen can show music or the tiled music/navigation view that CarPlay supports.

Basic music controls are on the steering wheel of course, readily accessible.

The lack of multitouch is slightly annoying, but it's not something I ever use. If I ever can't see what I need on the navigation I simply look outside for the road signs, which still exist.

Can’t you do split screen navigation via the home screen (Dashboard View)? At least on cars I’ve rented I could have navigation on one side and music on the other in CarPlay.

Most OEM infotainment sucks, and it's taken a while for things to improve. I'd be willing to say your older car has a resistive touchscreen and physically couldn't support multitouch

CarPlay is definitely an improvement if you're comparing it to something like Ford Sync for example

You can control music and still navigate while in CarPlay. I do it all the time.

Curiously, being herded onto tesla's software is the number one reason I won't buy one. I don't like the navigation or media software and the rest would feel better as a physical control or just seems useless in a car.

OK you don’t like it. How is that an argument against allowing people to choose?

The main dashboard screen of CarPlay lets you navigate, manage music, and view the calendar and take calls all at once. Have you used that before?

Like the author said, if your built in is good, then great you don’t need CarPlay. Literally nobody is asking you to switch.

I have a Tesla and a Lightning.

One of them lets me send iMessages to groups as well as non-phone recipients like my kids. The other is my Tesla.

I’m glad for you, but if Tesla supported CarPlay I could get what I wanted and you would not be affected at all. I’m baffled why people like you even bother to share your opinion. Nobody is suggesting that you be forced to use CarPlay. See also the entire topic of this discussion.

I honestly cannot believe how bad CarPlay is — I can't believe how many rave reviews it gets, I think it's absolutely awful compared to Rivian or Tesla software.

Second all these points! No multitouch is such a bad experience on maps!

All of this nonsense critique is massively outweighed by 1. having a HUD (your tesla will never get one because Elon is an idiot) and 2. having carplay/android auto sync your turn-by-turn directions into that HUD.