Did you upgrade your iPhone to the new iOS 18.4 release, which landed on March 31? Have you had any problems with CarPlay? The two may be connected, as users report that CarPlay is suddenly having connection problems.
The new iPhone software means that CarPlay is improved, or should be. Some car displays are now showing three rows of app icons instead of two, which is obviously better, if the car’s display is big enough.
But there are reports of problems. One user, ceadd, posted on X that the update wasn’t working great for them. “Really unhappy with iOS 18.4. #Carplay is driving me crazy. Think I will upgrade to the betas. So annoying that were on .4 and the quality is still bunk,” they said. The next day, they moved to iOS 18.5, which is in beta right now and they added “CarPlay at least today popped up zero delay.”
Other users are reporting issues, on Reddit, for instance. One said that to get it working properly required “disconnecting and reconnecting the device to the vehicle FIVE times! I’ve just gone back to the old usb connection until Apple has a patch or something,” they say.
Issues include the display not showing the information for the song currently playing or CarPlay failing to launch at all. Some reports say that Siri capabilities with audio are problematic, even after the iPhone or vehicle are restarted. Rebooting the device has worked in some, but not all, cases.
Apple hasn’t made any comment about this issue, and it’s not clear just how widespread it is, though the initial reports come from users in a variety of cars, including Mazda, Honda, Audi and Ford, so it isn’t restricted to one brand, and all say the issues have only arisen after installing iOS 18.4.
Some users say that removing a car from CarPlay and starting the pairing process again can help. You do this by opening Settings on the iPhone, choosing General and then CarPlay and swiping left on the car’s name to remove it from the list.
The second stage involves pairing the car again. This may work, but problems may still remain. I’ll update this post as more information emerges.
