iOS 18 poor CarPlay quality, bluetooth issues

Question

Level 1

4 points

iOS 18 poor CarPlay quality, bluetooth issues

Just upgraded to iOS 18 without changing anything on my car, so I’m confident this is an Apple issue and not my car. When I’m playing a song (on Soundcloud/Spotify/Music) and then plug in my phone to connect to CarPlay, the sound quality deteriorates drastically. I’ve tried closing/reopening the music app with no luck.

My car shows a speaker symbol with music and a microphone symbol on calls. When I connect to CarPlay now with music, the symbol turns to a microphone, which tells me the phone is not communicating properly with CarPlay that the input is music, not call audio. But could be some other reason.

Also, when I unlock my phone while connected to bluetooth (safely of course, e.g. to look at directions), the music playing cuts out briefly upon unlocking and cuts out again upon re-locking.

iPhone 13

Posted on Sep 28, 2024 6:06 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 6, 2024 8:51 PM in response to dillonwh

I have the exact same issue when I connect my iphone 16 pro to my car via car play. The connection is erratic and so is the sound quality. It seems the audio gets connected to speakers that carry ‘announcements’ from maps…and not the primary speaker system. If I lock the phone, the audio pauses for a second or 2 and switches to primary speaker system. Very annoying

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Answer 2

dillonwh Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 7, 2024 12:25 AM in response to GurpreetSandhuGS

Oh that makes me feel better that other people have the same issue, but very frustrating. I hope Apple escalates this issue to get a fix.

I realized the bluetooth issue with the music cutting out when I lock/unlock the phone happens with all bluetooth speakers for me, not just car speakers.

I have found that by leaving my phone unlocked while connected to CarPlay and prompting Siri once, the music goes back to normal quality, but immediately drops off when the phone locks.

For some reason, my gf’s iPhone 12 mini with iOS 18 does not experience this issue.

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Answer 3

Azer5555

Level 1

8 points

Oct 9, 2024 6:59 PM in response to dillonwh

I had this problem and was driving me crazy. I spent hours on the looking at what might’ve been causing this, and the best answer that I got was try turning off voice shortcuts. amazingly enough, it works!!! When you play music, you can actually toggle the voice shortcuts on and off and hear the music quality drop and come back.

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Answer 4

dillonwh Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 9, 2024 7:06 PM in response to Azer5555

Was just about to update this thread since I had tried that and it worked for me as well. Funny enough, I had made a shortcut to be able to open music apps while driving to be safer. It would be nice to have this feature and retain the audio quality, still.

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Answer 5

Azer5555

Level 1

8 points

Oct 9, 2024 8:25 PM in response to dillonwh

Under Accessibility ➔Speech➔Vocal Shortcuts

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Answer 6

Oct 9, 2024 7:29 PM in response to Azer5555

Do you mind navigating me to settings and tell me how to turn that off. Not sure if I followed what you mentioned in the post. Are you referring to turning off siri ?

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Answer 7

dillonwh Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 9, 2024 7:34 PM in response to GurpreetSandhuGS

Not siri I don’t think. Try Settings > Accessibility > Speech > Vocal Shortcuts

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