New CarPlay App Is Alive!

[EasyPass]

I would like to see the data for “number of Mach E owners without a smartphone” I suspect it rounds to zero. Ford could just make things "complementary" in the same way as lock/unlock, for example.

To be clear: I'm not taking a maximalist position. I wouldn't want to control my heated seats through the phone, for example. And I'm aware of the trade-offs. If functions move into the phone app, I can't just toss my keys to a friend and say "take my car to Florida." My friend would need the ford app, I'd have to grant them access... it would kind of be a mess.

And yet, Consider...
As the owner of a 2024, I can't see charge rates on the screen when I'm sitting at a charger. It's in my phone but not on the giant center screen. If Ford can just use phone projection to inexpensively report the charging speeds on my center screen, that's a win! Yes, the trade off is that I can't glance in the window while I'm on a call outside the car, for example.

I do want Ford to fix it properly in Sync, but I don't want great be the enemy of good.

Consider this:
I was charging recently at a newly installed EVGo site, and after the session completed spinning up, the screen on the charging tower went blank and pointed me to the EVGo app to monitor the progress (SoC%, charge rate, time active, etc) of the session. Even the charging infrastructure doesn't want to show charging rate without an app.

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[gregsfortytwo]

They are also requiring Apple to keep CarPlay compatible with older cars. In 10 years I expect to be driving the same car and I don’t want an upgraded iOS to mean it won’t connect to CarPlay v1. If they are going to only have features in apps then they should sell a phone with the car and label it a remote control like with TVs.

Your odds of CarPlay (closing in on 12 years old, btw) working are a lot higher than many, many connected features in cars continuing to work. A lot of older in-car navigation systems have stopped functioning, because they either needed to be dealer-updated with CDs, or they were on 2G or 3G cellular systems that don't exist any more.

You know how may cars there are whose CarPlay no longer works with a new-and-updated iPhone?
Zero, that's how many. Because it's a projection API and Apple isn't made up completely of idiots, so they keep the API compatible.

I'd rather have CarPlay than in-car systems, because my phone costs way, way less to change out than my car does.

 

[CraigS]

Does anyone outside the US see anything other than “Coming soon” from the Ford app via CarPlay? I’m on v6.7 of the app and it’s just that place holder message.

 

[leehinde]

Mine is Schrödinger's app. It is both coming soon and presenting notification alerts.

 

[tuminatr]

I have no experience on the Android side, but I think in the past there have been things that rolled out on iOS first and then came to Android a few days later.

At the moment they’re not missing much. Everything here is basically somewhere else in the infotainment system anyway. People were speculating about how they could add preconditioning, this could certainly be a place.

I don’t see why Ford wouldn’t make an equivalent version for Android Auto.

Especialy when the majority of the demographic that buys a Mach E has an Android phone

 

[azerik]

Wonder if this was the cause of my phone and carplay being totally on the fritz for about the last month. My Sync has become about as responsive as my 14yr FFE's Sync lately. Reboots freezing etc. It wasn't until I restart my phone that it told me to remove the PAAK and then thing skinda got back to normal

 

[MBCook]

Especialy when the majority of the demographic that buys a Mach E has an Android phone

Do we know that? Honestly I would have guessed in the other direction.

 

[Chapron]

Hallo I use Ios devices but i could not observe the new Cp changes viewing the fpa. (I am old)

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Do we know that? Honestly I would have guessed in the other direction.

The breakdown of mach-e owners by phone architecture is almost guaranteed to mirror the general population breakdown.

 

[CraigS]

I doubt it. The demographics of the general population probably don’t match those that can afford a Mach-e and that could influence phone choice.

 

[tuminatr]

Do we know that? Honestly I would have guessed in the other direction.

The majority of Americans over 32 have an android phone. But to your point I haven't seen Fords internal figures

 

[MBCook]

The majority of Americans over 32 has an android phone. But to your point I haven't seen Fords internal figures

My understanding is more wealth = more likely to have an iPhone (in general). And the MachE is not a cheap car by any stretch as CraigS said.

So I would expect iPhones to be more common.

With all the telemetry Ford knows. I’d love to see the answer but they’ll never tell us. And a poll here would be heavily influenced in whatever direction by who self-selects to be here.

 

[tuminatr]

My understanding is more wealth = more likely to have an iPhone (in general). And the MachE is not a cheap car by any stretch as CraigS said.

So I would expect iPhones to be more common.

With all the telemetry Ford knows. I’d love to see the answer but they’ll never tell us. And a poll here would be heavily influenced in whatever direction by who self-selects to be here.

That's not true anymore. Mainly because the more expensive phones are actually Android phones. Mainly because they offer higher tech features like folding phones better batteries that kind of stuff. Almost every carrier there's a free iPhone.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

My understanding is more wealth = more likely to have an iPhone (in general). And the MachE is not a cheap car by any stretch as CraigS said.

You’re wrong on both counts. Androids are the most poplar cellphone across all demographics, although the percentage of iOS users is higher with higher income. Also the lowest priced mach-e was not quite $36,500 for 2025. Higher trims were higher of course. But a sub $40,000 car is not all that expensive. If it is, Ford needs to lower their UEV target by a lot of coin.

 

[MBCook]

You’re wrong on both counts. Androids are the most poplar cellphone across all demographics, although the percentage of iOS users is higher with higher income. Also the lowest priced mach-e was not quite $36,500 for 2025. Higher trims wre higher of gourse. But a sub $40,000 car is not all bad gat expensive. If it is, Ford needs to lower tgeir UEV target by a lot of coin.

Android wins hands down worldwide. Things are roughly even in the US.

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