CarPlay settings you may want to change after setting it up

If you want to add smart features to your car, setting up CarPlay is one of the easiest ways to get started. Whether you use a wired connection or via Bluetooth, setting up CarPlay takes just seconds. You’ll have access to your navigation and music apps in no time with a familiar user interface. As is the case with many other Apple devices and services, the CarPlay experience out of the box is good enough that most people won’t feel the need to change the settings.

That said, CarPlay lets you change a few options that change how it looks and behaves. To get started, you can choose a different wallpaper by going to Settings > Wallpaper or pass from Always dark theme to Automatic heading towards the Appearance submenu. You can also increase or decrease the text size by going to Settings > Accessibility > Text Size. There is also an option to make text bold.

You can also add, remove, or rearrange apps on the CarPlay home screen. This customization happens on your iPhone: go to Settings > General > CarPlayselect your car and under the “Personalize” section, tap Applications. Swiping up on an app will take it to the very first page of apps on CarPlay. If you use widgets, this is also where you can edit widget stacks to include some of your favorites.

Focus mode on the iPhone might prove to be an extremely underrated utility if you’ve never used it to mute distracting apps during work hours (or annoying Slack pings during your free time). You can create focus modes for all kinds of activities, driving being one of them. iOS actually has a pretty well thought out preset for driving, which you can add by going to Settings > Focus > Add and selecting Conduct. You can choose to automatically activate Driving Focus when your iPhone detects motion or connects to your car’s CarPlay system.

Notifications from all apps are automatically turned off when your iPhone is in Driving Focus mode, although you can add exceptions for people who still want to call you. You can set up an auto-reply message to be more courteous to those who try to reach you while you’re on the road. Additionally, if Siri is set to announce notifications, CarPlay will read incoming notifications aloud. To enable this feature, go to Settings > Notifications > Announce notifications > CarPlay and activate the toggle.

Starting with iOS 26, you can see more information on your screen if you go to Settings > Display > Smart display zoom in CarPlay to activate it. It’s designed to better accommodate more information on your car’s screen by shrinking elements if there’s enough space to do so on larger screens. If you prefer larger icons and text, make sure Smart Display Zoom is turned off.

The last thing anyone wants to do while driving is fiddle with a touchscreen trying to find the right button on Google Maps. So Siri becomes more valuable than ever when using CarPlay. You can summon the assistant using the familiar phrase “Hey Siri” or by pressing the voice control button on your steering wheel. There is, however, another option that lets you control some of the more basic CarPlay functions without having to summon Siri first.

Voice control can be activated in CarPlay by heading to Settings > Accessibility. You will spot a blue waveform on the screen when the feature is activated. Now you can simply talk to your car to perform basic actions like opening an app or going back a page. For example, saying “Open Spotify” will launch the app, and following with “Play” will start playing whatever you had queued up. Voice control works independently of Siri, but if you need to call the voice assistant, just say “Open Siri.”

Another accessibility feature you’ll find in the CarPlay settings is Sound recognition. When the feature is active, your iPhone listens for horns, sirens or baby cries and alerts you by displaying a message on your car’s infotainment screen.