How Apple CarPlay Will Be Less Annoying With iOS 26

Apple CarPlay is getting new features with iOS 26.
Phone widgets will show up on your car's screen.
The call screen will no longer take up the entire display.

CarPlay, Apple’s phone mirroring system for car infotainment systems, is used over 600 million times a day, so it’s a big deal. It can instantly transform an old car thanks to tight integration with navigation and music streaming apps. And it's considered the gold standard for an in-car user experience after drivers dealt with bad native software from automakers for so many years.

It’s not perfect, though, and Apple knows that. Which is why Apple CarPlay is getting some welcome updates starting this fall, when the latest version of the iPhone’s operating system, iOS 26, starts hitting handhelds across the world.

The biggest news with CarPlay on iOS 26 is that the car’s infotainment screen will no longer be dominated by a handful of buttons and a little photo when someone calls you. Instead, the call dialog will be relegated to the bottom of the screen, inside a nifty little rectangle.

This way, the navigation app, or any other app, will still be visible in the background, so you won’t miss the next turn just because you got a call from someone.

A while ago, Apple added the ability to use widgets on the iPhone, and now, those widgets will also be available on CarPlay. Things like garage door openers or smart home controls will show up on your car’s infotainment display. Live Activities, which is a fancy term for interactive notifications, are also coming to CarPlay with iOS 26. Tapback support, which allows you to quickly reply to a message with an emoji, is baked in.

CarPlay will also look different. That’s because Apple introduced a new Liquid Glass design to all its devices. It features translucent elements and new app icons that frankly make it look a little like the controversial Windows Vista of the 2000s. You either love it or hate it.

All of this is coming to regular CarPlay, which is pretty much in every new car out there today, except for Tesla, Rivian, and new General Motors models. The new stuff is also coming to CarPlay Ultra, which is coming to Aston Martin first, and plays the role of a full-fledged automotive operating system, with instrument cluster displays, HVAC controls, and everything else in between.