Mercedes Apple CarPlay

Mercedes Benz, one of the best-known luxury car brands, has been getting even more luxurious lately with its improved compatibility with Apple CarPlay. This app lets you perform all sorts of actions with your phone via the car’s control knob and vocal commands alone. You can listen to music and even use the iPhone’s navigation system, plus other functions.

Apple CarPlay is not available for 2015 and older Mercedes-Benz cars. Mercedes-Benz owners who want to get Apple CarPlay will have to install an aftermarket receiver that is Apple CarPlay ready.

What is Mercedes Benz Apple CarPlay?

It can be pretty dangerous and inconvenient to call or text while driving. Apple CarPlay is an app that makes it easy and safe to use your iPhone while you’re busy behind the wheel. Thanks to technology that allows the phone to mesh with your car’s controls, you can use certain iPhone functions without getting distracted.

It completely changes how you interact with the phone while driving by transferring the phone’s interface onto the bigger dashboard screen. You can use such functions as Maps, music, and even text by voice control via Siri.

Although Apple Car Play primarily works with native apps, there are several third-party apps that you can use. These include iHeart Radio, Spotify, Pandora, and Stitcher. The only thing you might not like is that you cannot control the vehicle settings through CarPlay. That means you have to exit the app to change climate control settings, control the radio and change the driving mode.

What Mercedes models is CarPlay compatible with?

The current version of Apple CarPlay can support the 2016 and newer versions of the following models:

• A-Class
• B-Class
• CLA-Class
• CLS-Class
• E-Class Cabriolet
• E-Class Coupe
• GLA-Class
• GLE-Class

As for the E-Class and SL-Class, only the 2017 and newer models are supported.

But apart from having a compatible car, you must also have a compatible phone. Apple CarPlay can work with any iPhone model from the iPhone 5 and later.  That means any iPhone 5s or 5c, iPhone 6s and 6c, and iPhone 7 and 7 plus, are all supported. Apart from that, your phone will need iOS 7 and later. As for the hardware, all you need is the right Lightning USB cable to establish a physical connection.

How do you connect your iPhone to Mercedes CarPlay?

To connect your iPhone to Mercedes CarPlay, you only connect your phone to the USB port. Your car will then detect the connection, and the CarPlay icon will appear. At this point, all apps that can work with CarPlay will be displayed. Once this is done, you will be asked whether to enable Automatic Start. This convenient feature remembers your phone and settings when you plug your iPhone in. If you aren’t using the phone with your CarPlay regularly, for example, if it is your friend’s phone, you must select ‘Connect Manually.’

You can also use Bluetooth if your car has this feature. Simply follow the following steps:

Press and hold the voice control button, or put your car in wireless or Bluetooth pairing mode. Next, go to your iPhone, select ‘settings’, then navigate to ‘general’. Choose CarPlay, Available Cars, then choose your car.

What Features Does CarPlay Have?

Navigation: You cannot use your car’s navigation system since CarPlay has a fixed interface. The app will instead display Apple Maps, which is equally reliable. You can control it using voice commands or tapping the dashboard controls. Siri sometimes does not understand where you would like to navigate. In such cases, you can manually type the address on the car’s screen.

Voice Control: The whole essence of CarPlay is to make it easy to use the phone while driving. This is done by enabling you to control your phone with your voice as much as possible. While you might find the interface exactly like the iPhone, it works differently. CarPlay will work by voice control via Siri. You can activate Siri by pressing the voice prompt buttons on the steering wheel or the dashboard touchscreen. You can also get Siri running by saying, ‘Hey Siri.’

Siri may not always understand your voice commands. In that case, you must use physical means to control the app.

Texting: Apple set out to make it as easy as possible to call or text while driving without using your already busy hands. You can call or text by tapping the phone button on the dashboard touchscreen or commanding Siri. CarPlay composes and reads the texts via text-to-speech software.

Playing Music: Apple limited the number of apps you can use to listen to music. This can only be done via the apps on the preset interface, such as Apple Music, Podcasts, and Audiobooks. Fortunately, you can install several third-party apps such as Stitcher, Spotify, Slacker Radio, etc.

How Siri Integrates With Your Mercedes

To make things as convenient as possible, Siri is a major part of CarPlay. It can be useful when locating a nearby restaurant or finding your way to any address. Siri senses whenever you get behind the wheel and will give you information to aid your driving. At the same time, it tries to avoid giving you any information that might distract your driving.