CarPlay in iOS 26: Liquid Glass, app widgets, refreshed apps

Seems you don’t want an Aston Martin to have a brand new CarPlay expertise in 2025. That’s as a result of iOS 26 brings a recent coat of paint and a few new options to CarPlay for everybody.

Liquid Glass design

The obvious change is actually a brand new theme that mirrors Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language used on iPhone. In CarPlay, Liquid Glass is current from app look choices to buttons and different interface components.

CarPlay icons now help these look modes: Default, Darkish, and Clear. Clear is the tremendous glassy look with choices for Gentle, Darkish, or Auto. The brand new Clear Darkish choice is my early favourite.

Right here’s a fast shot of the Can-Am Pulse electrical bike I’m testing…

Widgets can now seem on CarPlay, together with from third-party apps on iPhone that shouldn’t have CarPlay variations. Widgets on CarPlay look quite a bit like StandBy widgets on iPhone for the reason that expertise is shared.

CarPlay widget stacks will be configured from the iPhone within the Settings app beneath Basic > CarPlay > My Automotive > Widgets. Along with configuring which app widgets seem, you possibly can toggle widgets on/off, toggle wallpaper on/off, toggle widget options on/off, and toggle rotation on/off.

In my instance, solely a single widget stack is supported. Nonetheless, wider display screen methods can have further stacks that may be configured independently. Apple shares an instance:

With the addition of widgets, the default app grid strikes to the third CarPlay residence display screen. Widgets seem on the primary, leftmost residence display screen. Dashboard is second and instantly left of the app grid view. Then the app grid view begins on web page three and extends primarily based on what number of CarPlay apps are put in.

Stay Actions in Dashboard

Talking of Dashboard, the second residence display screen is the place tiles for Stay Actions will seem when energetic, squeezing in on the underside proper facet.

That is the half the place I’d present you the Uber Eats instance I screenshotted earlier immediately, however CarPlay screenshots are actually off by default. Allow CarPlay screenshots from Settings on iPhone beneath Basic > Display Seize > CarPlay Screenshots.

Luckily, Apple offers an instance of a Stay Exercise in motion…

Extra

Different adjustments embrace a redesigned Music app that displays the navigational construction of the iPhone model, Tapbacks help and pinned conversations in Messages, and extra:

CarPlay — the smarter, safer means to make use of iPhone whereas driving — is used over 600 million occasions per day, and now with iOS 26, it receives updates that make it much more lovely and simple to make use of. The gorgeous design features a new compact view for incoming calls, permitting customers to see who’s calling with out lacking key info like upcoming instructions. iOS 26 additionally brings Tapbacks and pinned conversations to Messages in CarPlay, and with widgets and Stay Actions, customers can keep within the loop with out dropping concentrate on the highway. These updates additionally come to CarPlay Extremely, which brings the perfect of iPhone and the perfect of the automobile collectively for a deeply built-in, unified expertise throughout each display screen.

Listed below are extra photographs Apple offers that present how CarPlay in iOS 26 seems on various kinds of shows:

Lastly, for the Aston Martin drivers, that is CarPlay Extremely in iOS 26: