A possible workaround for a CarPlay bug that makes the GPS “unreliable”،
9to5Mac Editor-in-Chief Chance Miller has an article that offers a possible solution to a headache-inducing situation many drivers have experienced first-hand with CarPlay: a frozen GPS signal, leading to unnecessary (and dangerous) car navigation ).
The author says he has been experiencing intermittent CarPlay GPS issues for almost a year now. “Essentially, GPS continually fails and completely interrupts navigation through Apple Maps, Google Maps, or any other navigation app,” he says, adding that many CarPlay users have shared similar experiences.
The bug is not limited to a particular brand or type of vehicle: it does not discriminate and affects electric cars in the same way as gasoline cars. This affects both wired and wireless CarPlay. The issues affect a wide range of iPhones, with complaints coming from the iPhone the new iOS 17. There are several ways to solve this problem. which the CarPlay GPS bug manifests itself. Here’s how Chance Miller describes them:
- “First, sometimes the GPS connection completely freezes and stops updating. The little direction arrow just stops updating and the map gets stuck wherever this happens. This means that the detailed instructions stop updating.”
- “Secondly, GPS tracking is just freaking scary, for lack of a better term. I’ll drive on the highway, then look at CarPlay and see that CarPlay thinks I’m driving in the middle of a field. Or drive into a river.”
- “Third, sometimes the GPS location indicator changes to the big circle radius. CarPlay thinks I’m somewhere in this circle, but it doesn’t know exactly where. This interrupts the step-by-step instructions.
A possible workaround
After carefully checking the settings and verifying that the car’s firmware and phone are up to date, Miller offers two “temporary solutions”:
The first possible solution is to start navigation in Apple Maps/Google Maps/etc. on your iPhone before connecting your phone to CarPlay. “This seems to significantly reduce the chances of CarPlay disconnecting and ruining your navigation instructions. It’s far from an ideal solution, but it seems to work most of the time,” he says.
Another thing one could do if the CarPlay GPS connection is interrupted is to temporarily “wake it up” by unlocking your iPhone and opening the navigation app you’re using: “This gets things back on track for a few minutes before they inevitably collapse. Again”.
It is a problem
As the author says: “This is a very serious problem indeed. One of the main purposes of CarPlay is to provide accurate and reliable turn-by-turn navigation information. For many people, CarPlay fails in this area. This is also a dangerous problem. Over the past two weeks, the CarPlay GPS completely broke while I was driving in Dallas and Austin, leaving me in chaotic traffic with no direction on where to go or how to get to my destination.
Have you encountered CarPlay GPS issues? If you have your own workaround methods, please share them in the comments section below.
