I currently have an iPhone 6s Plus which (finally) works well with CarPlay in my 2019 RDX. I am considering switching to an iPhone 12. The iPhone 12 has a lightning connector on the phone but comes with a USB – C cable. If I use my old USB cable that I’ve been using in my car rather than a USB – C cable will CarPlay still work properly?

Thanks in advance.

 

I picked up my iPhone 12 yesterday and I'm still using my old cable (usb) in the rdx

 

Does your new iPhone 12 work well with CarPlay?

 

It works fine. No issues.

 

Yes it will work as I went from a XS Max to IPhone 12. The cable used in the car will be USB to Lightning. You can’t use the USB-C part in the RDX as it’s connector is USB.

 

Wonder how carplay will work when Apple goes portless.

 

Oooohhhhh you had to go there, huh?

 

... wirelessly ... ?

Honda just added wireless CarPlay to the Accord. So did Mazda. BMW has had it for years (and recently retracted their terrible choice to charge a subscription for it). It's not new. It was one of the biggest "pros" on the X3's list for me, personally. Wireless CarPlay is awesome.

 

In order for any vehicle to use wireless Carplay the vehicle needs WiFi & Bluetooth. The data transmission happens over the WiFi connection as bluetooth doesn’t have the bandwidth. Then of course the vehicle has to have the software intelligence to for the Carplay work over those two platforms.

 

So, my old iPhone 8 worked flawlessly with CarPlay in my 2020 RDX Advance. A few days ago, I upgraded to an iPhone 11 (good discount, no need for 5g) but... now I’m getting dropouts and “Loading...” delays on almost every song. I’m using Amazon Music HD, which admittedly is high bandwidth, but it worked fine with the iPhone 8. Not a CarPlay issue, thank goodness. The phone is the only changed parameter. I guess I have to research how to add rabbit ears to my iPhone... grrr.

 

Are you sure you're on system version D1.2.1 or newer? All the versions before that have CarPlay audio problems.

A friend of mine has an aftermarket head unit with wireless CarPlay; he doesn't think the audio quality is as good as when plugged in via USB.

 

UPDATE - After letting my RDX think about it overnight, I plugged in my iPhone 11 this morning and drove around all day with CarPlay/Amazon Music HD with no glitches whatsoever. Go figure...

 

I started this thread and have since bought an iPhone 12 pro. It is working flawlessly with CarPlay. I have not play HD music. So far I’ve mostly used it with Waze and audiobooks. I do have Amazon prime music on my phone so I’ll give that a try and see how that works. I don’t know if that’s what you’re talking about by HD music???

I’m just so glad that CarPlay does not keep disconnecting which I lived with for the better part of two years.

 

Congratulations! I hope you continue to have no problems with CarPlay. I put up with a similar situation in my 2018 CR-V for two years until I finally got so fed up with it that I traded it for a 2020 RDX a few months ago.

Amazon Prime Music HD is an upgrade that streams near-audiophile quality tracks. It costs a few dollars more a month than Amazon Prime Music Unlimited. It is vastly better than Apple Music with the RDX ELS Studio 3D system. The song files are very large though. I have an unlimited cellular data plan, so it’s not an issue.

 

HD mostly means a higher bit rate at a sampling rate of 48khz; the limit of what the phone's USB connection supports. Higher resolutions and more than two channels require native FLAC files on a USB stick. Sounds like the other person using Amazon is streaming files rather than saving them locally on the phone.