How to Switch Between Two Phones on CarPlay

CarPlay has been around since 2014 and receives feature updates quite frequently, making it a safer way to interact with your phone while driving. Its setup is simple, and aside from occasional connection issues, CarPlay tends to work seamlessly without requiring any troubleshooting — that is, until you have a passenger with an iPhone previously paired to your car. Although you can set up CarPlay for multiple iPhones in the same vehicle, you can only use one with CarPlay at a time.

Let’s say two people with CarPlay-paired iPhones get in the same car. If your car automatically connects to the driver’s iPhone, you don’t need to do anything, but if it chooses the passenger’s phone to project CarPlay, you’ll need to manually reestablish the connection. Depending on the car manufacturer, the process of selecting another iPhone for CarPlay varies. Some infotainment systems allow you to choose a preferred or primary phone that will take priority whenever there are multiple paired iPhones nearby. You should be able to find it in the Bluetooth settings or device management menu of your car’s infotainment system.

Some manufacturers, like Hyundai, let you switch between CarPlay or Android Auto connections on the go. Your car should remember your preferences the next time it detects the same devices. Car infotainment systems are special, though, so manually turning off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on the other iPhone is a quick and dirty solution. You can also try using a wired CarPlay connection to see if that forces your car to prioritize the physically plugged-in iPhone over another wirelessly connected phone; However, Reddit users haven’t had much luck with this method.

CarPlay’s app library isn’t limited to navigation and music apps. AI chatbots like ChatGPT, fuel price trackers, and parking space finders are supported, but most people are happy with a map and on-screen playback controls. If you want to switch CarPlay connections to a passenger’s iPhone so they can resume playing music, there’s an elegant workaround that allows them to do so.

SharePlay support for CarPlay was introduced with iOS 17, and as long as everyone in the car has an iPhone running iOS 17 or newer, they will be able to join the driver’s Apple Music session and add, rearrange, or delete tracks using their own device. Passengers do not need to be subscribed to Apple Music to use SharePlay in the car: only the host does.

For those who primarily use Spotify, the app’s Jam feature offers essentially the same functionality and allows everyone in the car to join the host’s session and contribute to the queue from their own phone. Again, attendees don’t need Spotify Premium if they’re using the feature in person.

Of course, using SharePlay or Spotify Jam only allows passengers to control the music. If they need to use the navigation or display messages on the car’s infotainment screen, they will need to manually change the CarPlay connection using one of the methods mentioned above.