Audi Says It Plans To Bring Apple Carplay To Its Cars Next Year

Audi today announced in a press release that it plans to integrate Apple’s CarPlay technology to its vehicles possibly as soon as next year. This makes Audi the first automobile company to join Apple’s initial list of committed partners since the Cupertino-company announced the feature’s roll out plans in detail earlier this year in March although Alpine and Pioneer have been added for announcing support for aftermarket solutions.

Audi has not yet been added to Apple’s CarPlay microsite which lists each car company with a commitment to support CarPlay, but Audi says that CarPlay integration with its vehicles “is taking place through intensive dialog between the Audi development lab in Silicon Valley and Apple.” While its unclear just how far along Audi’s partnership with Apple is since Apple hasn’t added Audi to its list of partners, for its part Audi says it plans to roll out the first models supporting CarPlay in 2015.

To date, models from Ferrari, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo have been announced with CarPlay support in 2014, while Honda is on Apple’s list to support the feature this year as well.

Audi joins a massive list of other automobile manufacturers including BMW, Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, and more.

CarPlay, of course, is a feature supported by iOS 7.1 and later on iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, and iPhone 5c to project content from iOS apps like Music, Maps, Podcasts, and Messages to the infotainment system built into supported cars.

(via AI)