For many people, CarPlay is a must-have. Apple’s in-car experience offers a better infotainment experience than most options from automakers. There’s quick access to your favorite apps, integration with Siri, seamless communication, and more.
Here are all my favorite tips and tricks to make sure you get the most out of your CarPlay experience…
Updated on April 7, 2026 with new features for iOS 26
Customize your CarPlay apps and home screen
Most of your favorite apps are probably available in CarPlay, but that doesn’t mean you need to be everything on your CarPlay home screen. Thankfully, it’s easy to adjust those options.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone
- Tap “General”
- Tap “CarPlay”
- Tap the name of your vehicle and select “Customize”
Here, you’ll see a full list of all the CarPlay apps on your phone. You can simply click the red delete icon to hide apps from appearing in CarPlay.
You can also rearrange your CarPlay home screen while on this page of the Settings app. Simply drag apps to your desired order using the three rows to the right of the app icons.
CarPlay wallpapers
While you won’t be able to use any image as your CarPlay wallpaper, Apple does provide a selection of pre-installed options.
- Open the Settings app in CarPlay itself
- Select “Wallpaper”
- Choose the wallpaper you like and press “Set”
Apple adds new wallpaper options to CarPlay from time to time, but there are still a limited number of options available.
Wireless or wired?
CarPlay works both wired and wireless, depending on the make and model of your car. Wired CarPlay generally provides a faster and more reliable experience. While using wireless CarPlay, you may experience some delays when doing things like changing songs and accessing Siri.
Here is my strategy:
- I use wireless CarPlay on quick trips around town where I get in and out of the car as many times as I’m searching.
- I use wired CarPlay on long road trips where I’m in the car for a long time.
Also, your mileage may vary depending on your vehicle. However, there are ways to bring wireless CarPlay to any car. My personal recommendation is the CarlinKit 5.0 adapter, which turns your car’s wired CarPlay experience into a wireless one for under $60.
Dark mode
CarPlay is available in light mode and dark mode connections. In the Settings app with CarPlay, you can choose between three options:
- The light
- It’s dark
- Default
I use the default setting, which switches between light and dark mode based on the time of day and other external lighting factors.
Driving Focus mode
One of the most important benefits of CarPlay is that it improves safety in the car by stopping you from holding your phone. First, there’s the Driving Focus mode. This blocks incoming notifications, messages, and calls so your focus stays on track.
You can customize Driving Focus Mode through the Settings app on your iPhone. You can choose to allow notifications from certain contacts and enable the auto-reply feature that tells people who text you that you’re calling. You can also choose to enable Driving Focus if you’re connected to CarPlay by default.
Announce Messages
Announce Messages is a popular iPhone feature that works with Siri to read your messages aloud. Then, you can choose to reply to that message using your voice. The feature works with Apple’s Messages app and third-party apps like WhatsApp.
- Go to Settings > Siri & Search > Announce Notifications on your iPhone
- Open Announce Notifications and select supported apps
- For CarPlay, make sure Announce Messages with Siri is enabled in the CarPlay Settings app
Share Play
If you’re like me, you prefer to control the music while driving. However, if you want other people in your car to be able to contribute songs on line, CarPlay has you covered.
You’ll see the SharePlay icon in the upper right corner of the Apple Music Now Playing screen. By tapping this icon, you will be prompted to generate a QR code that others can scan. Once they scan this QR code, a popup will appear, letting you know that someone is interested in joining your SharePlay session.
Once that person has joined, other people can contribute songs to the queue, see what’s currently playing, and rearrange the queue – even if they don’t have Apple Music.
With CarPlay in iOS 26, Apple added support for widgets for the first time. Now, you can access many of your favorite iPhone apps right on your car’s screen.
Usage here will vary based on your car’s screen size. On some cars, you can create two “stacks” of widgets, while other cars limit you to one stack.
To manage widgets in CarPlay, follow these steps:
- Open the Settings app.
- Select General.
- Select CarPlay.
- Tap on “Widgets”
Here, you can add more widgets to your stack and rearrange them. There is also a change called “Smart Rotate” that will intelligently switch between widgets in each stack, and a “Widget Suggestions” option.
Live Activities
iOS 26 also adds support for Live Actions in CarPlay. This displays Live Actions from your iPhone right on your CarPlay screen. Live Actions is one of my favorite iPhone features, so I’m glad they jumped on CarPlay with iOS 26.
Live Actions are enabled by default in CarPlay, but you can turn them off by going to the Settings app on your CarPlay screen.
Pinned Messages
iOS 26 updates the Messages app in CarPlay, including support for pinned messages. This, however, proved to be a controversial change. With iOS 26.2, Apple added an option to disable pinned conversations in Messages in CarPlay.
Just open the Settings app on your CarPlay screen, and toggle “Pinned Messages.”
Installing the icon
If you’re looking to refresh the CarPlay interface, there are several options to choose from: Auto, Dark, and Clear. You can find these options in the Settings app in CarPlay.
Finish it
Are you a CarPlay user? If so, what are some of your favorite tips and tricks? Let us know down in the comments.
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