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How to add CarPlay to any car
This is the cheapest, easiest way to upgrade even an old beater.
Leander Kahney
August 02, 2023
I’ve long loved CarPlay — Apple’s iPhone-powered infotainment/mapping system for cars. But until now, none of our old beaters could accommodate it.
I once bought a CarPlay-compatible head unit and spent half a weekend installing it. It was stolen just a few days later, to my undying fury.
A glutton for punishment, I bought another cheap head unit that was on sale, but then learned it was too big to install (after the return period ended, natch). Now it’s sitting in a box in our garage.
Then I learned about cheap USB CarPlay adapters that can be plugged into almost any Android tablet to turn the device into a giant CarPlay display.
This was perfect for our old Land Rover. (I know, I know. I feel guilty driving it, which is only rarely and usually on long trips. My wife hates it so much she calls it the “asshole mobile.”)
Using a tablet for CarPlay is perfect for an older car — and for the mean streets of San Francisco, i.e., it’s easily stashed out of sight of ne'er-do-wells when not in use.
If you, too, are interested in adding CarPlay to an older vehicle, here’s how I did it.
Also in today’s newsletter:
Apple’s first handheld, the Newton MessagePad, launched on this day in 1993 and was notoriously killed by Steve Jobs when he returned to Apple. But our vintage-loving writer D. Griffin Jones still uses his to this day, for a reason I know no one will guess.
Even though Apple TV+ thriller Hijack is highly preposterous and completely unbelievable, it is entertaining, especially the season one finale.
I need this three-in-one charging cable.
And this svelte new travel charger from Belkin looks interesting.
Today’s Setups post features an envy-inducing rig based on a brand-new MacBook Pro and a massive 49-inch-wide monitor. But all anyone cares about is the wall behind the gear.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
Tweetz o’ the day
Black Titanium Apple Watch Ultra Mockup
— Basic Apple Guy (@BasicAppleGuy)
6:13 PM • Aug 1, 2023
The story of the iPhone mini. The wallets do the voting.
— ARJ (@_arj123)
5:03 PM • Aug 1, 2023
The Apple Park parking lot traffic lights are on brand
— Andreas Storm (@avstorm)
10:18 AM • Aug 2, 2023
One more thing ...
For most things in life, the range between best and average is 30% or so. The best airplane flight, the best meal, they may be 30% better than your average one. What I saw with Woz was somebody who was 50 times better than the average engineer. He could have meetings in his head.
The Mac team was an attempt to build a whole team like that, A players. People said they wouldn’t get along, they’d hate working with each other. But I realized that A players like to work with A players, they just didn’t like working with C players. At Pixar, it was a whole company of A players.
When I got back to Apple, that’s what I decided to try to do. You need to have a collaborative hiring process. When we hire someone, even if they’re going to be in marketing, I will have them talk to the design folks and the engineers. My role model was J. Robert Oppenheimer. I read about the type of people he sought for the atom bomb project. I wasn’t nearly as good as he was, but that’s what I aspired to do.
Today’s poll
Do you use Apple CarPlay? |
Results from yesterday’s poll: Do you like the new Twitter logo?
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