So, you’re iPhone won’t connect to CarPlay. No matter what you try.
- You’ve Googled until you are losing the will to live. You have tried everything and anything to get it to work.
- You’ve tried rebooting the phone followed by the car then the car followed by the phone.
- You tried multiple cables.
- You’ve removed your phone and then re-registered it with the car.
- The phone charges off the USB bit STILL the damn thing isn’t seen by CarPlay
- Maybe you can play music BUT the GPS mapping (in particular) does not connect to the cars display.
- You get one of your mates to come round. You register his iPhone and it works perfectly.
That was my wifes story. (I don’t have an iPhone and never will – I’m an Android man).
This is what we did after trying just about everything else we could find. This worked. (For us anyway)
The Fix
We (or rather she) eventually fixed it. Here’s how.
(Sit down or stand well clear of breakable objects before you read the answer)
This is the unbelievable bit….
She fixed it by: Enabling Siri. That’s all. Nothing else.
Yes. You need to enable the spy in the phone in order for the damn thing to connect to Apple CarPlay. It appears that if you disable Siri a whole host of other stuff doesn’t work. Including much of CarPlay. This is because Siri must be enabled to allow data transfer through the USB cable. No Siri → no cable data transfer.
This also means that connecting to your laptop is also compromised unless Siri is enabled. See this equivalent post for that.
The fact that the thing can play music, do phone calls and give audio SatNav data is because they can also transfer over Bluetooth. I assume (I don’t have enough willpower left to find out) that IF Siri is enabled all data (including music and audio) will use the cable (if it is there). Then those apps that can, default to Bluetooth if the cable (or Siri) isn’t there.
We found one brief mention at the bottom of a post somewhere telling us that. Initially we ignored it thinking it too ridiculous. But eventually we ran out of more sensible possibilities and ended up trying it. It then just worked.
So if your iPhone won’t connect to CarPlay by USB and you’ve tried all the other options check that you have enabled Siri. Otherwise all bets are off.
If you HAVE enabled Siri, tried all the other options and it STILL doesn’t work all I can do is give you my deepest condolences.
Next time buy an Android phone ( like This One ) You know it makes sense.