Turns out you don’t need an Aston Martin to have a new CarPlay experience in 2025. That’s because iOS 26 brings a fresh coat of paint and some new features to CarPlay for everyone.
Liquid Glass design
The most obvious change is essentially a new theme that mirrors Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language used on iPhone. In CarPlay, Liquid Glass is present from app appearance options to buttons and other interface elements.
CarPlay icons now support these appearance modes: Default, Dark, and Clear. Clear is the super glassy look with options for Light, Dark, or Auto. The new Clear Dark option is my early favorite.
Here’s a quick shot of the Can-Am Pulse electric motorcycle I’m testing…
iPhone widgets on CarPlay
Widgets can now appear on CarPlay, including from third-party apps on iPhone that do not have CarPlay versions. Widgets on CarPlay look a lot like StandBy widgets on iPhone since the technology is shared.
CarPlay widget stacks can be configured from the iPhone in the Settings app under General > CarPlay > My Car > Widgets. In addition to configuring which app widgets appear, you can toggle widgets on/off, toggle wallpaper on/off, toggle widget suggestions on/off, and toggle rotation on/off.
In my example, only a single widget stack is supported. However, wider screen systems can have additional stacks that can be configured independently. Apple shares an example:
With the addition of widgets, the default app grid moves to the third CarPlay home screen. Widgets appear on the first, leftmost home screen. Dashboard is second and immediately left of the app grid view. Then the app grid view begins on page three and extends based on how many CarPlay apps are installed.
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