Apple’s iOS 18.4 was deployed to the public earlier this month, adding a multitude of new features such as new languages for Siri, a new recipe section on Apple News and an ambient music option.
The update also brings three new improvements to Apple Carplay to rationalize your driving experience. Although it is not a huge overhaul, it includes practical user interface adjustments and new options that offer more information at a glance, which means less time making a screen and more time focusing on the road.
Read the rest for some of the biggest Carplay updates added with iOS 18.4
Additional row of icons
As spotted by 9TO5MACIOS 18.4 added a row of additional icons for certain types of cars. Depending on the size of the infotainment screen of your car, Carplay now displays a third line of application icons where it only supported two before.
It is practical for vehicles with particularly important screens, giving you access to even more applications on a single screen. It is nice to see that Apple does not let this additional real estate waste, or worse, explode the icons of the application in giant and clumsy stains.
The screens and driving do not go together, especially when you have to attack the menus. This configuration facilitates seeing what you need at a glance, so you are less likely to leave your eyes on the road.
It seems limited to certain cars for the moment (the 8 -inch infotainment screen of my colleague Tom Pritchard had the same two rows of Carplay icons as always), but Apple could deploy the support for more models in the future.
Sports Applications
iOS 18.4 also facilitates the fact of staying at the top of the big game from the road. Carplay now offers integration with applications that show sports scores, allowing you to see how your favorite team is done at a glance.
Carplay is limited to allowing you to check the scores for the moment, but it could soon change. As 9TO5MAC Depending on the month, Apple published an API for sports application developers, therefore third -party sports applications or integration with the Apple Sports application could be on the horizon.
New default options for EU users
Finally, iOS 18.4 allowed users of the pond to more easily adapt their carplay experience to their navigation application of choice.
Instead of having to stick to Apple cards, EU users can now define alternatives as Google Maps as a defect.
It is a small but substantial upgrade which means that you can simply say: “Hey Siri, take me to X”, and Carplay will automatically use any navigation application that you prefer to get there.
