OS 26 has introduced a new feature that will help CarPlay take better advantage of the shape of your vehicle's display, Apple announced at WWDC 2025. When enabled, the new Smart Display Zoom will shrink down elements on the screen to fit an extra row of app icons.

The new iOS 26 CarPlay feature will allow users to use multi-touch gestures in supported vehicles when using mapping apps, like Apple Maps and Google Maps.

Along with the redesign of iOS 26, CarPlay is following suit with a new look. The new design extends into the car for a consistent, expressive experience while you drive. This includes icons that look great in light or dark mode, and a more compact design for notifications so you can still see the directions clearly on your screen.

The new CarPlay experience in iOS 26 brings quite a few upgrades, but the ones that caught my attention right away were the arrival of Live Activities and widgets. With these, drivers get glanceable, timely information in their car without having to open apps or, worse, pick up their actual phones.

Tesla Android Project integrated iOS 26 changes into its setup so that Tesla owners could test the latest Apple CarPlay version with the Liquid Glass redesign

Apple isn't holding back with CarPlay in iOS 26. Here are the 5 features that will greatly improve your driving experience later this fall.

With a couple of tweaks, you can make your CarPlay shades of pink. We're not sure why you'd want to, but TikTok seems to be loving it.

With iOS 26, Apple's CarPlay gets a brand-new look, radio controls and a compact design to reduce distractions.