Apple has made its biggest change to CarPlay and it's coming in iOS 13.

Before you get too excited, iOS 13 won't be released to the general public until around September. You can access the closed beta firmware with a developers account or when Apple releases the open beta in July, you can access it by being a member of Apple's beta program (free). It's something to look forward to because I see this as a major improvement. All that's left is adding compatibility for the native TrueTouch controls in the RDX. One can only dream....

New to CarPlay:

1. In the photo below, you will see the new CarPlay dashboard. It include a small map (Apple Maps only), quick links for finding places in the area, music controls, and calendar events. Yes calendar events. You can now glance at your calendar using CarPlay in your RDX. Swipe over to the succeeding pages and you will have a familiar layout of app icons as you see now in CarPlay.
2. Apple has decoupled the infotainment screen from the phone. Meaning that using maps on your infotainment won't open maps on your phone. Same for music or whatever else you use. They are now independent displays.
3. Siri no longer takes over the entire screen when issuing commands. Great if you are making commands while trying to navigate!
4. Siri now works with 3rd party music and navigation apps.
5. Settings app just for CarPlay. I have not messed with this yet but it provides users the ability to manage Do Not Disturb While Driving options.
6. Light mode and dark mode. Not much more to be said here...
7. The update gives Acura the ability to utilize the second screen for CarPlay in future firmware updates. No word if Acura will ever do this. I think we all know they should fix many other things first.
8. Apple Maps has improved tremendously and is closer in detail to Google Maps. This is present on the phone and CarPlay.
9. Apple Music has been redesigned.
10. Overall, CarPlay has a more attractive look. I'm very happy with it so far. If my opinions change over time, I'll make sure to leave an update!

 

Does it still sometimes beep and screetch if you ask it to walk and chew gum at the same time?

 

I was bummed when I read that my iPhone 6 won’t get iOS 13, I guess it’s time to upgrade!

 

I traded my 6 in for an 8 a few months ago. Just had 16 Gigs, and that was not enough storage anymore.

 

I updated to iOS 13 on my iPhone X and it seems to work well. I like the new interface a lot more. Everything that was mentioned earlier I agree with. However in just the first few minutes using it the music still skipped. So there are still issues and they are clearly Acura's and not Apple's. I hope they fix this soon. It's not a huge deal to me but this car is frustratingly close to being a perfect vehicle for me. So so close. If they fix these issues I'll truly have nothing to complain about. Here's hoping though!

 

Thats nice but I doubt it alone will fix the Acura CarPlay issues. I have a feeling that we may be stuck with CarPlay issues forever in the 2019 models. Lets see if as I suspect a new version of the Infotainment internal hardware is newer in the 2020 model.

 

iOS 13 has been more reliable with CarPlay with my RDX over the last two week than iOS 12 had been in the previous month. It's early so we'll see.

 

Cool features, but for me, until they incorporate native TrueTouch controls into CarPlay, it's always going to feel outdated and inconvenient.

 

Agree, Please keep us informed as I have gone a while too with no issues and then out of nowhere BAM. I am a Beta tester so hope I get it soon to see for myself. Lost my developer access when I retired. It has already been a year with these issues that's why I am pessimistic that a new update of IOS will solve the issues.

 

The Acura update in about February stabilized some things for me. So I expect stability needs to come from Acura, not Apple.

The RDX has been out for over a year, and Acura’s update frequency has been disappointing. There has yet to be an official ‘yearly’ navigation update, and a general update is sorely needed. Even though I don’t use Android, I am disappointed that even after a year past introduction, AA is still not active despite a year’s worth of Acura saying that it is coming.

 

What this basically tells me is that Acura is probably not going to have an update for our infotainment systems until mid to late September when they release iOS 13 officially.

If we haven’t seen one by now, they are definitely waiting for the iOS release in the fall so they can have that working with the true touch pad.

The other real concern is that when they do release a new version in the fall, will it be riddled with bugs and we are back to square one and having to deal with a super buggy system.

 

Square One? Have been at square one since I purchased the car a year ago. Infotainment is supper buggy already and its not just Apple CarPlay Usually just when I need the infotainment system the most it craps out in some fashion. My gut tells me its either a memory leak or probably more likely its cpu is under powered judging from systems behavior.

 

We'll see what the future is, but BMW just announced they will start charging $80 per year for Apple CarPlay to be active in their new cars. Hope that's just a BMW thing.

 

What a in your face way to start another subscription service. It’s all getting out of hand. At least maybe BMW’s CarPlay is solid unlike what we RDX owners have.

 

Apparently you also have a choice....you can pay $300 for a 'lifetime subscription'.

 

That's only with the current year models. It says that the next models won't let you do that.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a1...an-annual-fee/

"The German automaker currently charges a one-time $300 to add Apple CarPlay capability to navigation-equipped BMW models. Going forward, though, navigation-equipped BMWs will come with CarPlay at no charge for one year. Following that first year, customers will need to pay an annual fee of $80 to maintain the relationship between their Apple device and their BMW’s infotainment system."

https://www.cars.com/articles/is-bmw...1420699754172/

"From 2019 on, according to BMW, Apple CarPlay will be included as part of BMW Navigation and will now be offered on a subscription basis. The first year of the service will be free, then $80 annually after that. You won’t need to bring the car into a service center to renew or anything like that; BMW says you’ll be able to re-up your subscription through the car’s infotainment system."

 

And more...though the Supra is BMW equipped it's still a Toyota.

"2020 Toyota Supra Comes With Free Apple CarPlay For 4 Years"

 

Not that this justifies the annual fee, but I believe BMW is the only manufacturer to offer wireless Carplay.

 

Has anyone tried the lastest iOS 13 beta? I believe it is beta 4. Any updates to how well the system works and has anyone found any new features?

 

I tried beta 3 and it is unusable. You cannot play music at all. It crashes every time a song played. It looks great and I love that the look but it has a long way to go to being usable. I had to downgrade my phone to 12.4 after only a week.

 

Pictures of ios 13 on our Acura screen seems to make the map incredibly small. I wonder if we have the option of removing that stuff that occupies the right half of the main screen. Who needs THREE segments up there?

 

that is just the new dashboard screen. You don't have to have that visible, you can just have the display as it is currently.

 

Thanks, good to know.

Hopefully, Apple Maps is significantly improved as well.

 

Hmmmmm, I am running beta 3 and have been playing the music app nonstop with NO problems other than the occasional skip during playback as is present with IOS 12.n.

I do notice thought that the infotainment system display occasionally gets sluggish as if the processor is having a hard time keeping up so with that in mind I do not use any other CarPlay available apps as I am sure the head unit will start having difficulties. Same thing goes for any other builtin apps like Acura Nav or even XM.

 

I haven't had any issues with CarPlay on beta 4. I didn't with beta 3 either.

 

Reseting phone to factory settings, updating and then restoring from backup has killed any CarPlay bugs with both my Acura and Benz.

The Benz will 'drop' and freeze with random CarPlay moves, just like the RDX.

Benz and Acura play very nicely with iOS 13 beta, but still has its issues with music/spotify/now playing apps.

It is a bigger upgrade for the Benz, without the 2 screen set up, the 'home' menu with Nav, Music and calendar app on one screen is huge gain.

 

Really looking forward to the iOS update and how it will look in CarPlay.

 

Last beta of 13.1 really introduced a ton of instability to the CarPlay implementation. Any time I use the touchpad the whole app crashes. Have to basically hope I can get Waze up then select the destination on my phone.

Just installed the new version now hopefully it’s better tomorrow.

 

You will be happy. I used WAZE today without any issues.....older issues still exist.

 

Just to be clear I wasn’t able to even navigate the apps launchpad without it freezing and crashing. It wasn’t just waze.

Still hoping it works better though.

 

If you installed 13.1 beta 2 released this morning that problem should be gone.

 

Sweet. Thanks!

 

Just to revisit this, tecwerks are you saying that if you were using maps and also playing music through spotify or whatever at the same time using carplay that the processor becomes bogged down? So you can either listen to music or pull up maps but cant do both?

 

Thats not an issue I have seen again since updating tp the latest 13.1 beta. That does not mean it does not exist.

 

With iOS 13 does Apple CarPlay have better connectivity with the RDX? Meaning does it not keep disconnecting as it does currently?

 

I have not had any disconnects since the 13.1 beta 2 release. I have left my iPhone plugged using CarPlay between stops. When you return to the RDX and start the vehicle it comes right back up and starts playing music.

 

Did you used to have disconnects prior to 13?

 

Yes I did but more on longer trips than I have been taking the last month. Although it did happen on shorter around town ones but not as often. Have not had any yet.

 

first time using apple car play was wondering is the port inside the center console the only port that CarPlay will recognize when attaching to iPhone ?

 

Ha, as chance would have it when I was out this evening the music started skipping pretty bad. Its annoying but I still love the RDX, strange.