If you’re an iPhone owner who listens to music every now and then, you probably use the Now Playing feature to keep track of the songs that are playing, regardless of the app you are using.
This is actually the purpose of Now Playing in the first place, and Apple designed this feature in a way that allows it to also keep track of everything that’s playing when CarPlay is running on the car’s screen too.
And there’s more Now Playing can do. For example, when shutting down CarPlay and leaving the car, Now Playing is automatically paused, letting you resume the playback when you get behind the wheel and relaunch CarPlay.
But all of these happen when Now Playing actually works, as some users discovered the hard way recently. A number of users complain that after updating their iPhones to iOS 13, which was launched in the fall of 2019, the feature either doesn’t work at all or fails to do it correctly.
Someone on reddit explains that Now Playing often forgets the song and just shuts down, making it impossible to resume the playback when CarPlay is restarted. Several users have confirmed the same behavior, and I also noticed that occasionally, not every time though, Now Playing indeed closes all by itself and no longer displays the song I was listening to in Spotify when I turned off the engine.
“My phone forgets 'now playing' in CarPlay almost every time I exit my car (even if it's only for 5 minutes). It doesn't matter what app I'm using, overcast, Spotify (premium), amazon music unlimited, etc. I will start a playlist for example, and then I leave my car later and come back 5 minutes later and CarPlay reconnects but there is nothing playing, the 'now playing' app in CarPlay shows nothing playing, and if I manually go back to Spotify it has no record of anything playing, so I have to start the playlist over and lose my place in it,” one reddit user explains.
This is happening regardless of the app you’re using to listen to music, as it seems to be linked to iPhone’s battery management system rather than to a specific app.
At this point, no workaround exists to prevent Now Playing from shutting down, and the recently released iOS 13.5 doesn’t seem to bring any improvement.
And there’s more Now Playing can do. For example, when shutting down CarPlay and leaving the car, Now Playing is automatically paused, letting you resume the playback when you get behind the wheel and relaunch CarPlay.
But all of these happen when Now Playing actually works, as some users discovered the hard way recently. A number of users complain that after updating their iPhones to iOS 13, which was launched in the fall of 2019, the feature either doesn’t work at all or fails to do it correctly.
Someone on reddit explains that Now Playing often forgets the song and just shuts down, making it impossible to resume the playback when CarPlay is restarted. Several users have confirmed the same behavior, and I also noticed that occasionally, not every time though, Now Playing indeed closes all by itself and no longer displays the song I was listening to in Spotify when I turned off the engine.
“My phone forgets 'now playing' in CarPlay almost every time I exit my car (even if it's only for 5 minutes). It doesn't matter what app I'm using, overcast, Spotify (premium), amazon music unlimited, etc. I will start a playlist for example, and then I leave my car later and come back 5 minutes later and CarPlay reconnects but there is nothing playing, the 'now playing' app in CarPlay shows nothing playing, and if I manually go back to Spotify it has no record of anything playing, so I have to start the playlist over and lose my place in it,” one reddit user explains.
This is happening regardless of the app you’re using to listen to music, as it seems to be linked to iPhone’s battery management system rather than to a specific app.
At this point, no workaround exists to prevent Now Playing from shutting down, and the recently released iOS 13.5 doesn’t seem to bring any improvement.