On Wednesday, Volkswagen announced that its CarPlay featured vehicles have started arriving at dealerships ready to be sold. First 2016 models of German automaker featuring CarPlay by way of the company’s MIB-II infotainment system have begun shipping from the manufacturing facilities and will start landing in dealer showrooms in “late July 2015.”
Toyota, earlier this years, withdrawn from its plan to ship its vehicles featuring CarPlay while other companies were not so quick to backtrack from the technology. The first Corvette Z06 vehicle from Chevrolet featuring CarPlay has arrived at dealerships. Cadillac, GMC, and Buick has pledged their own CarPlay support. Honda has also confirmed that its first vehicle loaded with CarPlay will hit the market in 2016.
Volkswagen is calling its in-car system “MIB II,” and it not only supports CarPlay, it also features Google’s Android Auto and MirrorLink. In the press release, the company is calling its new in-car system “one of the most comprehensive suites of connected vehicle services and features available.”
This is what company’s CEO Michael Horn said:
As the people’s car brand, we knew that it was important to democratize these technologies across the Volkswagen line-up, with features like App-Connect ensuring that more consumers can integrate their smart devices.
The in-car system introduced by Volkswagen comes with its own Car-Net apps. The system will allow car owners to get access to features like remote honk and flash, remote lock, location for the stolen vehicle, automatic crash notifications, and more. These Car-Net apps will set you back $199 annually, with a six months free usage for the owners. However the standard system and obviously the CarPlay doesn’t have that subscription fee.
The first Volkswagen models to get CarPlay support are the Tiguan and Golf R. The entry level models will feature a resistive touch display with 400×240 screen resolution, without featuring CarPlay support. The models with 6.3 – 6.5-inches capacitive touchscreen display will be the ones that support Apple’s CarPlay system.
Apple introduced CarPlay back in Spring 2014 and pitched it as a smarter and safer way to use your iPhone in the car. Using the system, users with compatible iPhone and headphones cam make calls, access text messages and perform various other operations through touch controls or voice commands via Siri.