CarPlay with iOS 18 Broken

Both phones operating iOS 18.

Swapped iPhone14 Pro Max to 16 Pro Max. CarPlay just wouldn’t engage as before.

Solution: Whilst in car - iPhone turned off, Car turned off. Switch iPhone back on, start car, connect iPhone to system - CarPlay now running as expected!!

iOS 18.3 resolved the problem me. Very frustrating to loose Carplay after upgrading to 16 Pro two weeks ago. Apple store installed latest iOS at that time but never mentioned the problem. Tried everything. Finally read previous posts and installed latest iOS (18.3). Thank you!

Both phones operating iOS 18.

Swapped iPhone14 Pro Max to 16 Pro Max. CarPlay just wouldn’t engage as before.

Solution: Whilst in car - iPhone turned off, Car turned off. Switch iPhone back on, start car, connect iPhone to system - CarPlay now running as expected!!

I have a 2020 Toyota Tundra, that only has WIRED Car Play. And a new iPhone 16 PRO MAX (iOS 18.0.1) that I tried to connect to the pickup Tuesday morning as we headed for the beach. It would not connect, and my wife and I tried each of our own USB-A to USB-C cables. The phone would show it was charging using either cable, but no Car Play activation.

On the way home, my wife connected her iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 18.0.1 to the pickup and Car Play worked as expected. So not at all likely just an iOS issue.

When we got home, I connected my iPhone 16 PROMAZ my wife's AUDI e-Tron, which does support wireless connectivity to Car Play. Car Play activation started and finished just as would be expected. I used the same car today to drive across the city on a long errand, and Car Play worked flawlessly for Apple Maps, iMessaging, Voice Mail retrieval, outbound calls and listening to music. So, not an iOS issue if connecting wirelessly.

So just now, I followed someone else's procedure: turn off phone, turn off pickup, get in pickup, turn on phone and let it complete boot cycle and unlock it, then start pickup and let it complete boot cycle. Connected phone to pickup and Car Play activation started and I was able to complete it on the pickup and phone side.

NOW, what I did that I should not have, was tried a 3rd cable I had yet to try... so right now don't know if it was the steps I followed, or the cable.

I will go back to one of the first cables I used to see if Car Play fails now, or still works.

This also worked for me with 14 pro and iOS 18.01. I did add 1 vocal shortcut after upgrading to 18.01. Deleted the shortcut and turned vocal shortcuts off. Thanks

Try the vocal commands setting. Nothing worked for me but saw someone post about this here and it worked. Not voice control, vocal commands. If you have any set up, delete them and then turn that off. Hope this helps

Apple support did everything, said I had to take the Charger to dealer for firmware update. I swapped the cable so I could NOT use the adapter. Works fine.

This is what fixed the problem for me:

-Go to Settings

-Click Accessibility

-Make sure that Vocal Shortcuts is switched Off

I needed to wipe and restore my phone from backup. This completely resolved the issue. Assume it was software corruption.

For CarPlay issues with IOS18: go to Screentime/content+privacy restrictions/allowed Apps/toggle CarPlay on

Thanks for this post, had same type of issues with my iPhone 14 plus after updating to IOS 18 and 18.0.1 didn't help. I made a vocal shortcut to turn on flashlight after updating. I disabled and deleted my shortcut and my CarPlay is now restored.

I used to work and was last tier of apple support, they have 2 option in this case. Refer u to car manufacturer or say that we are aware of this issue and working to fix it, and you have to wait for update

So i would recommend u. Not to touch cars firmware, cause for apple this issue is known. And that support guy just followed stupid instructions

My iPhone 13 ProMax would not connect to Car Play after having worked fine before. My troubleshooting included checking to see if it worked wired in my wife’s Mazda CX5. It did. Checking to see if my wife’s iPhone 12 SE worked wirelessly in my car. It did. Thus, there was some software on my phone messing things up. I tried all the recommended fixes including wiping network settings, checking VPN (off) and various other recommended checks for culprits. No joy.

In the end, I decided on the nuclear option and wiped the phone and restored from an iCloud backup. It fixed the problem. Don’t know what it was but it isn’t there anymore.

I got the shortest genuine spoke cable and it has been working.

I tried un-pairing and pairing again. "Sort of" works. Just won't load the album art now.