CarPlay now offers support for third-party navigation apps

Sep 20, 2018 12:35 GMT  ·  By

As a long-time iPhone user, I was excited with Apple’s announcement earlier this year at WWDC that third-party navigation apps would come to CarPlay, technically allowing us to use Google Maps or Waze (and not Apple Maps) behind the wheel.

It’s not a secret that Apple Maps isn’t exactly the best mapping product out there, and a simple search on Google shows exactly why.

Navigation instructions that took you in the middle of nowhere, locations that are nowhere to be found, and overall broken mapping data contributed to a mix that made Apple Maps impossible to use not only for me, but for many other iPhone users out there.

In my case, the temporary solution was one that actually pushed me off the iPhone until Apple resolved the CarPlay issue.

Switching to Android Auto, where both Google Maps and Waze run just fine, was the only way to go, and this is exactly what I did when I finally understood the benefits of having the map on my car’s display and not on a smaller screen like my phone’s.

Android Auto, however, hasn’t provided exactly the most reliable experience, and users who run it on a daily basis certainly know what I mean. The September update, for instance, has broken down everything, and I’ve seen users complaining of major app crashes, including of the said Google Maps and Waze.

So it goes without saying that Apple bringing third-party navigation apps to CarPlay was exciting news for many people. And this week when iOS 12 rolled out, Google Maps finally arrived on my car’s screen.

Google Maps on Apple CarPlay

However, after trying out Google Maps with CarPlay today, I’m going back to Android Auto, hopefully just temporarily, as the experience with Apple’s system needs major improvements.

First and foremost, Google Maps on CarPlay is just a layer, and this is a double-edge sword. For example, the app launches extremely fast, but on the other hand, whenever you do anything on your iPhone’s screen, the app closes on the car dashboard too.

So for instance, if you have Google Maps on the dashboard and at a traffic light you want to check out an email, Google Maps closes on both screens. As soon as you close it on the iPhone, you close it on the car’s display too.

The UI is just as refined as I expected it to be on an Apple product. Icons and the rest of the graphics look modern and fresh, and to be honest, I like it much more than on Android Auto.

But at the same time, the dock (navigation bar) which is pinned to the left side of the screen, takes too much space on the display, so that in Google Maps, streets with longer names won’t be displayed correctly, with some letters missing mostly all the time.

Then, the amount of customization is extremely low. You have only a few options that you can change in Google Maps on CarPlay, and you can’t even customize the blue arrow with a car icon – this is actually a feature that’s now being implemented on Android too.

Also, you can’t use Siri just yet in Google Maps, and you have to stick to the voice dictation feature provided by Google, but what I discovered is that it’s pretty advanced.

In terms of voice guidance, you have only a few options. You can mute all notifications or allow them all. On Android Auto in Waze, for instance, many more settings are available, including allowing only the alerts if you prefer this way.

Needless to say, this is just the beginning of Google Maps on CarPlay and I have no doubt that the experience will be further refined as more updates are released. But for now, Android Auto still seems to be the best choice, despite it not offering quite a seamless experience at all times.

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Apple Maps on CarPlay
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