Thought I'd start posting about my experience using CarPlay as I use it on a daily basis. This will include everything from features I discover to annoyances, here are 10 random observations and thoughts so far:
1. When selecting the artists tab sometimes I am presented with an A-Z list on the right hand side where I can jump to artists that start with a specific letter, very handy. Unfortunately a great many times the artists tab does not offer me this option. There's no rhyme or reason to why it appears sometimes but not others that I can discern.
2. I thought the interface was boring but my son pointed something out to me tonight that altered my opinion. I was under the impression that when a track was playing the background was simply a solid color with large text about the track overlaid on top of it. Actually the album art is behind the text, it's full screen and blurred out. My opinion now is that it's kind of slick, thank you son.
3. It's not wireless yet and with iOS9 released now it should be.
4. I experienced a very loud shriek for lack of a better term twice during a song on iTunes Radio. It was very jarring, but was the first time it's happened so perhaps it was just a glitch. Going to keep my ears open for this one.
5. I thought it was interesting that when I pressed the homescreen button (the physical one on the infotainment controls) that the song playing in CarPlay showed on the MyLink interface. There was no interruption so apparently you can switch back and forth at will between CarPlay and MyLink. while in the same song.
6. When swtching songs track information appears in the HUD.
7. Siri works really well when requesting specific music to be played. It'll find a track by name even if the artist isn't spoken.
8. The steering wheel controls function in a very limited manner with CarPlay. About the only control I was able to utilize was the up and down arrow which advanced to the next and previous tracks when listening to the iPod (music) component of CarPlay. The arrow buttons on the steering wheel also advanced to another channel when in iHeart radio and performed a song skip in iTunes Radio.
9. The rotary control knob under the infotainment screen does not function in CarPlay. (major bummer)
10. There's no video support of any kind, but I guess that's not too surprising. Still it would have been amazing to support YouTube, Netflix, and similar apps. They could even have limited video playback to when the car was in park, but alas it wasn't to be.