Wanted Apple Carplay Solution

Wrong forum. Wanna buy a suitcase?

 

Ah.. good question. I have a 2020 C8 Corvette with non-wireless Carplay. 2021 cars are wireless. I use the Car2 Play adaptor (which works kinda sorta most of the time). Mine is 2 years old and still works.

The reason is the hardware is different between wired and wireless. Its not just software. I actually had my infotainment replaced in the Vette as it was faulty. They put in a 2020 unit even though 2021 models were already in production. The reason given: They are different.

What's funny is I thought I would never use Carplay and didn't think it was a big deal. But now, I use it all the time running Waze.

 

The ironic thing is that Apple -- the company that forced wireless by removing the headphone jack on phones -- had a wired solution for CarPlay, which was a total pain to use. I use CarPlay constantly for Spotify/Pandora in addition to Waze, and I despised plugging and unplugging it every time I got in an out of the car, especially when running errands. In the Macan, even a temporary hit to the connection would cause it to disconnect, and it wouldn't reconnect when you plugged it back in. I also used a Car 2 Play adapter in the Macan, and it works fine 98% of the time (every once in a while it doesn't automatically, but it is precisely 1 billion times better than being forced to use the wired connection).

 

If you have a wired cp issue it’s probably your cable. The only time I’ve had those issues was when my cable was going.

 

In my case, it was my older iPhone. The Lightning port had been cleaned several times, but even a microsecond of disconnect would cause CarPlay to stop -- this was with several different cables, I guess the jack was worn. When I replaced it with an iPhone 13, no more issues with wired disconnects, but I hated plugging and unplugging the phone every time I got in the car. For music, I vastly preferred the bluetooth on the old Q5 we traded in over wired CarPlay simply because it was wireless (which is pretty sad). Of course, Waze on CarPlay is way better than Bluetooth where you have to look at the phone for the map. Car 2 Play is a great solution.

 

It’s funny, I have zero interest in wireless CarPlay because I always want to be charging my phone anyway.

 

On longer trips, I'd agree, but for errands where I'm popping in and out of the car several times, it drove me nuts to unplug, then plug back in -- wired Carplay felt like a step backwards from the dumb Bluetooth I had in the prior car (for music at least).

The other thing is that the iPhone 13 battery life has been absolutely amazing. I've had a series of iPhones since they first came out, and this is the first one where I can go at least a day and a half between recharges. Between not needing to charge, loving the convenience of keeping it in my pocket, and wanting to minimize the # of recharge cycles (which is what kills battery life) I almost never plug it in at all -- only on very long trips. I've had the 13 for more than a year, and it still has that crazy long battery life. On prior iPhone models, I was like a "battery junkie" always looking for another recharge hit .

 

Now that wireless charge ports actually work. you just drop the phone in the holder at the front of the console and it charges while the wireless car play connects automatically (2023 Caddy) I use waze up every drive anymore for real-time traffic advice.