Apple’s CarPlay got a new SharePlay function during this year’s WWDC. The upgrade will make it easy for iPhone users to share control of in-car entertainment.
You no longer have to wait for a red light to let your friend to wirelessly connect to your car and start playing music, transferring the USB cable to a passenger will no longer be a hustle. The new SharePlay feature allows all iPhone users to join and play their own music, making a road trip much more fun. Apple demonstrated the capability in the Apple Music app, where users may skip, rewind, and reorder the queue.
“Now when the driver’s iPhone is connected to CarPlay, any passenger’s iPhone will automatically suggest joining their session. Just tap to connect,” said Anne Park Shedlosky, director of software program management at Apple.
Outside of the vehicle, SharePlay lets you watch a TV show or a movie with someone who isn’t in the same room as you. During a FaceTime call, friends and family can watch, play games, or listen to music on their Apple devices. All involved users see and hear everything on several devices at the same time thanks to simultaneous playback and shared controls. The CarPlay implementation eliminates the requirement for facetime since all users are in the car.
In addition to CarPlay integration, SharePlay has gotten upgrades that enable additional use cases. For example, if you’re going for a run with a friend and want to jog to the same music, you can now link up your audio together. On top of that, using SharePlay on Twitch will now allow users to bring their iPhones together to watch the same livestream.
The company hasn’t announced the apps supported by the CarPlay SharePlay feature apart from Apple Music but it’s only a matter of time to see other developers join in.
