We recently told you that Apple might announce its ‘iOS in the car’ initiative at the Geneva Motor Show and well, they have announced it today under a new moniker, CarPlay.
Apple has launched CarPlay in partnership with Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo and CarPlay will be premièred this week at the Geneva Motor Show. Apple describes CarPlay as a “smarter, safer and more fun way to use iPhone in the car.”
CarPlay will let you connect your vehicle to your iPhone. Users will be able to use CarPlay through their car’s native interface or by holding the voice control button on their steering wheel which will activate Siri. Once your iPhone is connected to the car, Siri will let you access your contacts, call people, read voice mails and return missed calls. Siri will also read your notifications like text messages and let you respond through voice dictation.
CarPlay will also integrate into maps and you can search for places and navigate through voice guidance and direction. The turn-by-turn directions will show up on your car’s display. It will also tell your estimated time of arrival along with updates on traffic.
You can also play music through CarPlay by asking Siri to search up for music on iTunes and your music library. It also supports third party alternatives such as Spotify. CarPlay will be available as an update to iOS7 and will be available for iPhone 5s, 5c and 5.
In addition to Ferrai, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, there are other car makers as well which will bring cars with CarPlay integration. The likes of BMW, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Kia, Mitsubishi, Nissan, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota will be bringing CarPlay to their vehicles.
