【2021 Archives】

Apple's new CarPlay Ultra021 Archivesonly available on Aston Martin cars right now, but at least you can check it out on video.

Two videos, actually. Aston Martin posted a short teaser showing what the CarPlay Ultra, integrated into an Aston Martin DBX, looks like. The video shows Apple's UI integrated not only into the main, center display, but also into the instrument cluster in front of the driver, which we've never seen before.

For much more detail, check out Top Gear's overview of the system in an actual Aston Martin car (which, by the way, starts at about $250,000, meaning most of us won't be trying it out for ourselves).

The 18-minute video below is well worth watching, but there are a few key takeaways that should be pointed out. First of all, while the new Ultra system is similar to Apple CarPlay of old, it is basically a full takeover of the car's infotainment system. You'll see familiar Apple user interface details everywhere, be it in the climate controls, navigation, or the instrument cluster.

Various themes are on offer, allowing you to customize the UI's look; for example, you can completely do away with the round speedometer and instead have a colorful set of lines giving you info on the speed you're traveling at, and how much fuel you've got left. You can also set up some widgets, much as you would on your phone or tablet.

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Very important: Once the system is set up, it doesn't require any additional setting up if you just want to sit into the car and drive, though it looks like some features will require your phone to connect.

While some of Aston Martin's own design does show up occasionally, it's all wrapped into a familiar Apple interface, and it all looks fairly polished. Given how bad car manufacturers sometimes are at designing their own interface, Apple CarPlay Ultra is a very neat alternative. Now, if only other manufacturers would hurry up and integrate this, we'd be much obliged.

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