During the longest, one of the best characteristics of AirPods was absent from the car. But in iOS 26, Apple made AirPods and Carplay work better than ever. Here’s how.
Airpods Automatic Switching supports Carplay in iOS 26
Automatic switching is one of these “magic moment” features that can make the Apple ecosystem so attractive.
Essentially, the AirPods function detects the Apple product that you use at a given time and changes your AirPods to connect to this active device.
So if your airpods are connected to your Mac during work, but you decide to take a tiktok break on your iPhone, it is not necessary to manually change the Bluetooth connection. Airpods will rather bring the change automatically.
When automatic switching arrived for the first time, it was certainly not the most reliable. But after a few apple upgrades over the years, for me, at least, the functionality has become solid, and something that I would hate to be without.
Even if the automatic switching has always taken care of the main IT platforms of Apple, there was a notable exception: Carplay.
But that finally changed in iOS 26: Airpods is now fully supported by automatic switching for Carplay.
It is one of the many AirPods features and features of new carpods that have recently been launched in iOS 26.
So, if you listen to AirPods and get into the car, you can control media playing via Carplay and everything automatically strikes your airpods.
Similarly, when you use airpods in the car, then when you reach your destination, you can easily pass reading on your iPhone.
This function goes well with a new separate but related iOS 26 parameter: “Keep the audio in the headphones”. The parameter will ensure that your Airpods audio does not go to your car-speaking system by car if you do not want it.
Have you used AirPods Automatic Switching with Carplay in IOS 26, or have you deactivated it? Let us know in the comments.
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