I just brought a brand new car (2016 model) that supports Apple CarPlay. The car has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. I use CarPlay with my iPhone 5S on iOS 9.0.2. Here is what I know so far about Wireless Carplay, based on my experience and what I have read...
1) WIRELESS CARPLAY DOESN'T WORK (yet): I have read several articles that suggest the primary reason Wireless CarPlay doesn't work yet has to do with power consumption. CarPlay simply uses up too much juice right now--that's why it has to be plugged in. It has nothing to do with the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth settings, or some other mysterious missing chip (lol). This reason makes sense to me--I notice that after I'm done with my drive and I unplug my iPhone from the car, the phone keeps open ALL 5-6 of the CarPlay apps I used during the drive. Any iPhone user surely knows that keeping 5+ apps open at any given time will substantially drain battery life. Now, imagine if I had those 5+ apps open on CarPlay, while wirelessly connecting to my car via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi! There would be a VERY substantial amount of power consumption taking place!
2) ATTEMPTING TO SET UP WIRELESS CARPLAY = LIMITED SIRI: First of all, the whole "set up wireless CarPlay" option on the iPhone is very misleading--the phone shouldn't even be displaying that option. However, I have attempted it, and the most I got out of the experience was a limited version of Siri. I was able to ask Siri to open an app, or call someone; but Siri's response was the same--something along the lines of "Sorry, I can't do that while you're in the car."
All in all, I will patiently wait for Apple to release Wireless CarPlay, in all of it's low-power, more-third-party-app-support glory! (*Fingers Crossed*)
