Carplay wins many new features with iOS 26, including a liquid glass design, live activities, widgets, the possibility of using tapbacks and visualizing pinned conversations in the messages application, and more. But that’s not all, because Apple described another change to come to Carplay with iOS 26 in a WWDC 2025 video For developers.
More specifically, Apple has said that iOS 26 will allow carplay users to interact with mapping applications using multi-touch gestures in supported vehicles. This will allow users to zoom in and heal on the card with their fingers, just as they can on an iPhone.
“Many new vehicles support multitouch interactions, including any vehicle that supports Carplay Ultra,” said Olivia Hess, Carplay software engineer at Apple, during the video session. “From iOS 26, if a vehicle supports multitouch interactions in Carplay, drivers can interact with your navigation application using multitouch gestures.”
In the video, Apple has highlighted another small but useful improvement in Carplay which is available with iOS 18.4 and later: a sporting mode for audio applications.
Carplay applications that broadcast audio for live sporting events can now show a dashboard for the CarPlay screen, just alongside audio flow controls. The reworked view now to play can show team logos, scores, the game clock and more.
IOS 18.4 was published at the end of March, while iOS 26 is currently available in the developer Beta and will be published in all users later this year.
Earlier in the day, we reported that Carplay will also win the possibility of playing videos from an iPhone via Airplay in supported vehicles.
