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Mysterious Icon Shows Up on CarPlay, It’s Actually a New Feature

One of the biggest new features coming to CarPlay users with the release of iOS 15 is support for announcing messages, which for a driving platform makes total sense.
The new indicator showing up on CarPlay just below the signal icon 6 photos
Photo: reddit user IvanRaide
The CarPlay dashboardWaze on Apple CarPlayHERE WeGo on Apple CarPlayNotification on the CarPlay homescreenThe CarPlay home screen
In essence, this feature allows Siri, the built-in digital assistant, to automatically read messages when they land on your iPhone if the CarPlay connection is active. In other words, if you receive a message, you no longer have to tap the notification on the screen to require Siri to read it, as the digital assistant knows what it has to do from the very beginning.

For a car platform, this comes in pretty handy, especially because it helps reduce the distraction behind the wheel, as drivers no longer need to look at the screen.

However, the most recent beta version of iOS 15 comes with a little new indicator on CarPlay that shows up just below the signal icon in the dock. And while this could take some users by surprise, it’s actually there to let you know when the aforementioned feature is enabled, so you won’t be surprised when Siri starts reading your messages out loud all of a sudden.

Again, this makes perfect sense, but it’s not all good news. The latest iOS 15 beta build also introduces a little change concerning how the announcing feature works in the first place.

Starting with this release, Siri can no longer read all messages (regardless of the app) that land on your iPhone when running CarPlay but stick with an application that you define.

In other words, Siri will only announce notifications from a selected app, which means that all the other messages coming from other apps will be ignored and still require manual input to be read.

At this point, it’s not yet clear if this is how things are supposed to work when the stable version of iOS 15 comes out in September, but hopefully, Apple reverts to the original configuration in the coming beta builds.
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About the author: Bogdan Popa
Bogdan Popa profile photo

Bogdan keeps an eye on how technology is taking over the car world. His long-term goals are buying an 18-wheeler because he needs more space for his kid’s toys, and convincing Google and Apple that Android Auto and CarPlay deserve at least as much attention as their phones.
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