Why Aston Martin CarPlay Ultra Could Make Every Other Dashboard Feel Dated
When Aston Martin customers start taking delivery of new DB12s, Vantages, Vanquishes and the DBX SUV this month, they’ll be climbing into the world-first production cars with Apple’s “CarPlay Ultra.” The long-promised next-generation CarPlay doesn’t just occupy the centre screen; it re-skins every pixel of the cockpit, from the instrument binnacle to the climate-control slider, turning the entire dash into one continuous Apple interface. (WIRED, Ars Technica)
1. A wall-to-wall Apple experience
Classic CarPlay lives in a rectangular box on the infotainment display. CarPlay Ultra instead commandeers every connected panel—speedo, rev-counter, head-up display and passenger screen—so navigation, music and Siri suggestions blend with vehicle data like tyre pressure or battery temperature. (WinFuture, TechStory)
2. Real-time vehicle controls, not just phone mirroring
Need Sport mode, seat massage or adaptive dampers? They’re now native CarPlay tiles that can be rearranged with the same drag-and-drop gesture you use to move apps on an iPhone. Aston Martin says over-the-air updates will add more car-specific widgets through 2025. (iphone-ticker.de, Macerkopf)
3. Personalisation per driver—and per brand
Apple lets manufacturers skin gauges and accent colours to match their own design language, yet each driver profile still loads their preferred instrument layout, playlists and climate presets the moment their iPhone unlocks the car. That level of dual-branding is new to any dashboard. (heise online)
4. Hardware you can actually buy in 2025
Porsche, Hyundai, Kia and Honda have signed on but won’t ship cars with the system until late-2025; Mercedes-Benz is still “evaluating.” For at least the next six months, Aston Martin is the only showroom where you can see CarPlay Ultra in metal.
5. Listen up, Android—Google just got leap-frogged
Google previewed its AI-powered “Gemini for Cars,” but that still lives in an Android Automotive sandbox on select Volvos and Polestars. CarPlay Ultra arrives fully finished, with Siri, Apple Maps Look-Around and SharePlay video streaming on day one, leaving rival dashboards feeling static.
6. Seamless tech requirements—unless you’re on an old iPhone
You’ll need an iPhone 12 or newer running iOS 18.5 or later; anything older stays on classic CarPlay. Existing Aston Martins fitted with the 2023-era 10.25-inch infotainment system can get a dealer update from June at no charge.
What it means for everyone else
- Luxury marques: Expect a wave of “full-cockpit” software refreshes as rivals scramble to match the visual wow factor.
- Mainstream cars: The next Civic, Ioniq 6 and Tucson are tipped to get CarPlay Ultra in 2026; screens without deep OS integration will look prehistoric by comparison. )
- Used-car market: Vehicles locked to older, siloed infotainment stacks risk immediate depreciation as buyers chase fully updatable digital dashboards.
Bottom line
Aston Martin’s CarPlay Ultra isn’t just an Apple skin on a single screen—it’s the first iPhone-grade user experience that absorbs the whole cockpit. Unless competing dashboards can match that seamless, software-first feel, they’ll look like yesterday’s tech the moment one of these Aston Martins rolls up next to them at the lights.
