What's the benefit of Apple CarPlay?

I've only had the car for a few days, but I'll probably just use Sync and Sirius for Nav/weather/traffic. I don't like plugging in my phone and can get my Amazon music through the Bluetooth connection. What am I missing? I don't use podcasts or audio books.

For those of us that didn't want to pay the crazy amount Ford wants for Nav, prefer a different Nav option, like being able to change between our various audio apps without touching the phone, it is a decent solution. It isn't for everyone, nothing is.

take a look at the official site here
http://www.apple.com/ca/ios/carplay/

That's pretty cool, thanks. Is there a way to override Siri and use the car's voice prompts? Also, while I'm at it, I'm still looking for a way to turn the screen completely off for night time driving. There's a bezel button for this on my F350, and I use it all the time on dark roads.

Still haven't gotten Accuweather to load with Apple...

Since I have Nav, Sirius and Waze I can not find a compelling reason to bother with CarPlay.

tom_sprecher said:

Since I have Nav, Sirius and Waze I can not find a compelling reason to bother with CarPlay.

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Yep. I really don't want to be texting and driving, even if it is hands-free. I'll just leave the phone unplugged.

tom_sprecher said:

Since I have Nav, Sirius and Waze I can not find a compelling reason to bother with CarPlay.

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yeah, but Waze is not integrated into the Sync system right? that's main point of CarPlay.

aham23 said:

yeah, but Waze is not integrated into the Sync system right? that's main point of CarPlay.

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I don't think it works with CarPlay either. Sirius traffic seems to be pretty good, at least for the major stuff. I find Waze to be too cluttered and distracting.

JPinkman said:

That's pretty cool, thanks. Is there a way to override Siri and use the car's voice prompts? Also, while I'm at it, I'm still looking for a way to turn the screen completely off for night time driving. There's a bezel button for this on my F350, and I use it all the time on dark roads.

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Have to go to settings, display, and choose the "off" mode under one of the menus.

Touch the display at any time to turn it back on.

The two big appeals of CarPlay are Apple Maps and Messaging. Siri does a better job at reading messages and taking dictation than SYNC voice commands.

Apple maps gets updated almost constantly. Factory Nav is still working off of 2+ year old map & POI data... No updates scheduled, and they aren't free.

Bluetooth audio is extremely compressed (both phone calls and music). I generally plug my phone in for charging and audio anyway so that's no big deal.

aham23 said:

yeah, but Waze is not integrated into the Sync system right? that's main point of CarPlay.

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I don't know if it's "integrated", but if I have Waze running it mutes whatever I have playing and then announces warnings over the car audio system. If running Waze I usually plug in my iPhone to charge it at the same time.

JPinkman said:

That's pretty cool, thanks. Is there a way to override Siri and use the car's voice prompts?

Click to expand...

I know this is bringing this thread back from the dead, but I'm not finding this kind of info in a search. I'd like to know the same thing. I like to use carplay for sending messages, but would like to be able to navigate my USB music while my iphone is connected. :shrug:

I have ZERO use for it and I've turned it off. Does nothing necessarily better than Sync 3, it just looks like a iPhone. And I lose the outside temp meter display when it's on.

I've never used anything on my car really except the USB port to charge my phone. I do have Waze app on my phone but I'll have to figure out how to turn on audio alerts for radar traps..that's about it. Otherwise I have the occasional phone call using blue tooth or use Nav on my phone.

I hardly even use my radio. I drive 90% of the time with the radio off and windows down.

I tried CarPlay and got annoyed with it. I use sync 3 for everything. If replying to text, you can still use Siri with just a longer press of the handsfree button. I don’t use navigation that often to find something (really just directions to cities out of town) so the ford maps is more than sufficient.

I guess I'm the opposite, I use CP every time I drive my car. It just makes it easy to use Spotify, listen to podcasts with the podcast app, and always have updated maps.