Apple released the first beta of iOS 18.4 last week. Alongside more Apple Intelligence features, the company has also added an interesting tweak that CarPlay users might love. As reported by MacRumors, Cupertino is adding a third row of apps to its car software.
At this moment, it seems the third row of apps is limited to larger center-display vehicles. For example, a MacRumors Forums member has a Toyota Tundra with a 14-inch infotainment screen and noted this addition. However, a Honda Civic with a 9-inch screen still displays the same two rows of apps.
That said, Apple might make this third row a default for vehicles with larger than 10-inch displays. While this addition might sound minor to some, this iOS 18.4 change is important to reduce the scroll through pages. After all, when you’re driving, the less you distract yourself with CarPlay, the better.
With that, some CarPlay users in iOS 18.4 will get up to 15 apps at once, which is possibly more than enough for their needs. While we’re still waiting for the next-generation CarPlay to be available, it’s interesting that Apple continues to improve the current version.
iOS 18 brought a few new features for CarPlay, including:
- Announced Notifications support: Announce Notifications can read aloud your notification summaries when using AirPods or CarPlay.
- Spatial Audio: Drivers can now listen to Spatial Audio songs and albums available in Apple Music and third-party apps while connected to CarPlay. Vehicles with multichannel audio capabilities can enable an immersive sound experience. Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos can also be implemented in compatible vehicles.
- Accessibility: Color Filters, Bold Text, Voice Control, and Sound Recognition accessibility settings are available in CarPlay in IOS 18, providing a consistent experience between the iPhone and the vehicle.
We’ll let you know once we learn more about this CarPlay feature once it’s released with iOS 18.4.
