At its annual WWDC conference, Apple made a big announcement regarding its CarPlay. It is Apple’s tool that was launched in 2014 to connect iPhone to car’s infotainment system.
Apple’s CarPlay is an automotive integration software. Using it, the users can interact with those applications that support communication, audio streaming, and navigation. The problem so far, however, was that for navigation the users were stuck with only Apple Maps. They could not use Google Maps or Waze if they wanted to and this was frustrating for those who preferred using these navigation apps.
Apple has now made it clear that with iOS 12, this problem will be resolved and the users will be able to use third-party navigation apps. iOS 12, which is the next version of the iPhone’s operating system, is getting launched later this year.
The limitation of using iPhone’s default mapping system, Apple Maps is over and CarPlay will now start supporting other navigation apps too. This includes Google Maps, Waze, and also Autonavi Navigation, the Chinese navigation app.
This announcement of giving access to third-party apps is a big change in Apple policy, which is always known for preferring its own native apps. Otherwise also, it keeps a tightly controlled ecosystem on iOS, but Apple Maps could never gain popularity among the iOS users.
Google had also given access to third-party navigation support in 2017 when Waze was enabled, but since then it has not added any other navigation app to the list.
Apple released its iOS 12 beta program on June 4th and it is expected that Apple CarPlay’s new third-party maps support will go live in September 2018.
