Every Feature Coming To Apple CarPlay With iOS 26

Apple CarPlay, which is used more than 600 million times every day, is a simple way to connect your iPhone to your car. It's ideal for long road trips, but it's worth using even for short drives, especially when you leverage all the cool tips and tricks it has to offer. From turn-by-turn navigation with detailed maps and music playback from Apple Music or Spotify to sending and receiving phone calls and messages, it's your portal into staying connected while still ensuring safe driving with your hands on 10 and 2.

The latest iPhone updates with iOS 26 come with automatic upgrades for CarPlay, too, enhancing the experience to ensure fewer distractions and interruptions so you stay focused on what's most important: the road ahead. Plus, you get a beautiful new design while maintaining familiarity. It's like your car's dash display becomes an extension of your phone. You can communicate through voice, access favorite apps, and more, all safely and, most importantly, hands-free. Here's a look at every feature coming to Apple CarPlay in iOS 26.

First, the overall look and feel of CarPlay is updated to fall in line with Apple's new Liquid Glass look. You have probably already noticed it on your iPhone if you updated the OS. It's a modern almost transparent-like look for the screen and apps. It pops nicely on the screen and you can adjust the look using different appearances modes, like dark and clear, ideal for driving during the day or at night. There are also more wallpaper designs that match common iPhone wallpapers in dark and light styles, too, so it's a truly unified look.

For cars that have a multi-touch display, you get enhancements when using Apple Maps. This includes the ability to interact with pinch and zoom gestures. Speaking of the latter, a new Smart Display Zoom feature helps you fit more on the screen, ideal if you use a ton of apps and you're on the road a lot. Of course, the farther you zoom out to show more, the smaller the app icons and the view will become.

Along with the overall enhancements to the look and feel of CarPlay is a redesigned way that notifications appear, intended to reduce distractions. Usually when a call comes through in CarPlay, it covers the entire screen. This impedes your view of the navigation, which could be crucial, especially when traveling in unfamiliar areas.

Now, a new compact view shows the caller in a small strip section on the bottom of the screen. This way, you don't miss pertinent navigation details like an upcoming turn or unexpected roundabout just because mom called to see what you're up to or the kids want to know where the cookies are hidden. It's a less invasive view. Plus, new iOS 26 updates to Phone and Messages eliminate distractions from unwanted and unknown contacts, and this extends to CarPlay. If there's a call or message from an unknown sender, it will be filtered on your phone for you to check when you have the time, and in turn, won't pop up on your CarPlay screen either.

Tapbacks were introduced to Apple's Messages app way back in 2016 with iOS 10 and it quickly became a popular feature for iPhone. What are they? A way to simply press and hold a message to reply with a simple reaction, like a thumbs up. In 2018 with iOS 18, Apple added the ability to use more expressive Tapbacks, including the option to use emojis beyond just the basic six reactions.

This feature is now available for CarPlay so you can long-press and send an emoji to quickly reply to a message versus having to pull over to reply at length or (gulp!) call them back. This way, you can send a quick thumbs up to confirm you're on your way or a heart emoji so they know you love and appreciate what they just said.

Pinned conversations, meanwhile, are now available for CarPlay as well. You can more quickly access the most important conversation threads instead of having to weed through all of your ongoing threads to find the one you need. Once you tap and hold a conversation and "Pin" it on your iPhone, you will be able to access it more easily from CarPlay as well.

Widgets keep you apprised of details in real-time, whether it's a music playlist you're listening to or the current weather. These widgets have long been available for iPhone but were previously only accessible via CarPlay Ultra, the premium tier currently only found in Aston Martin vehicles (though other car manufacturers are planning to implement it eventually, too).

Two stacks of widgets will show up on their own screen in CarPlay, and you can add up to five widgets to each stack. An enormous number of app widgets are already supported, from Apple's own Weather, Clock, Notes, and Reminders apps to third-party apps such as Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Spotify. You can customize the stacks to your heart's content.

Furthermore, with Live Activities, you can stay on top of your Uber Eats delivery status, flight tracker, when your garage door is opening, and even the current score of the football game if you're on a call and can't listen on the radio. As long as the activity is running on your phone, it will mirror via CarPlay.

You could already stream music through CarPlay from Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, and more. With iOS 26, add video to the mix. Of course, this should only be used while you're parked for safety. In fact, the feature is locked to only work when the vehicle isn't in motion, but it's an interesting new way to leverage how CarPlay connects to your phone.

Using AirPlay, you can mirror content from your phone to the car's built-in screen. This feature isn't officially available yet and requires support from vehicle partners. That said, once it begins to roll out, it seems like a great way to keep the kids entertained during an RV road trip stop or keep yourself busy if you're sitting in the car waiting for your kid to get out of school. Go ahead and finish that episode you were so close to finishing or just watch a few fun videos.

Apple CarPlay can be finicky at times, but some of its most common problems have simple fixes. Once you have it up and running, and update your compatible iPhone to iOS 26, you'll notice a smoother, sleeker, more unified experience that promotes entertainment, communication, and most importantly, safety.