Apple Carplay gimped by Ford

[rwolfcastle]

Ford seems to do this with all their vehicles and it makes me want to pull my hair out. Apple Carplay has full functionality while the truck is at a complete stop. As soon as you start rolling, the controls are gimped by Ford. If you go into your music library, and select "artist", it only shows you a list of your last ~10 played artists. Select an artist, and now it just plays. You can't select album or song. If I use Siri, it plays from Apple Music by default and I don't want that all the time either.

Same thing when in a phone call. If you are calling a place where you have to dial a number to speak to someone ("0" for operator for example), you can forget doing that if the car is in motion. I know Ford does this for "safety", but it's actually much less safe. Now I have to take my phone out of my pocket, and fumble with it while I'm driving in order to do something I could have easily done from the touch screen.

I also own a Hyundai with Carplay and they don't do this. Even while driving I have full functionality, the way it should be! @Ford Motor Company, can you not fix this with a software update?

Anyway, does anyone know if there is a way to bypass this to restore full function to Carplay while in motion?

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[MAV]

On my GT350 there is a code you can set in Forscan that disabled most of the "protections". It turns out that it enabled a mode for European travel where they don't have the laws that require the nannies to keep you from fiddling with electronics while you're supposed to be paying attention to the road. It turned on several other settings that weren't ideal, so I turned it back off.

Not sure if this is available for the new Rangers, but it's probably buried in the Forscan settings somewhere.

 

[LFRR13]

My BMW has similar restrictions.

 

[olefordguy]

On my current Ford, I put all my music on a really small flash drive. When i want to call, I use the voice commands and don't worry about fumbling with the phone. Drive Safe !!

 

[Wayfaring Ranger]

On my current Ford, I put all my music on a really small flash drive. When i want to call, I use the voice commands and don't worry about fumbling with the phone. Drive Safe !!

This is the way to do it.

I had an old iPod that i got refurbished to add a bigger and better hard drive. I keep my entire music library on this ipod and always keep it plugged into the car. It lets me listen to my entire library without worrying my music stopping because i'm in a cellular dead zone or the music not buffering fast enough or being required to pay a monthly subscription to spotify.

 

[rwolfcastle]

On my GT350 there is a code you can set in Forscan that disabled most of the "protections". It turns out that it enabled a mode for European travel where they don't have the laws that require the nannies to keep you from fiddling with electronics while you're supposed to be paying attention to the road. It turned on several other settings that weren't ideal, so I turned it back off.

Not sure if this is available for the new Rangers, but it's probably buried in the Forscan settings somewhere.

I don't think there are safety laws i the US for this. Like I said, my 2020 Hyundai doesn't restrict any settings while driving. My 5G Ranger was wired carplay only, so I attached the Car2Play adapter to have wireless Carplay, and it somehow bypassed the restrictions giving me full access. Now that wireless is already built-in, I don't know if there is a way to bypass.

On my current Ford, I put all my music on a really small flash drive. When i want to call, I use the voice commands and don't worry about fumbling with the phone. Drive Safe !!

I have ~140GB of music on my iphone. I'm not about to go out and spend more money on something else that duplicates the function I already have. For a call, I don't think you can use voice commands to dial numbers while you're already in an active call.

 

[MAV]

I don't think there are safety laws i the US for this.

I'm sure you're right. It's probably more likely that Ford is protecting itself from litigation by restricting these things. Either way, they don't seem to care about Europeans suing them, because it's an option there.

 

[Wayfaring Ranger]

I have ~140GB of music on my iphone. I'm not about to go out and spend more money on something else that duplicates the function I already have. For a call, I don't think you can use voice commands to dial numbers while you're already in an active call.

What app (within carplay) are you using to browse for your local music on your phone? I'm guessing it's just the default iPhone Music or whatever. It might be worth checking alternative apps that CarPlay supports and maybe the functionality would less restrictive in those.

I'm an android user but AndroidAuto supports VLC media player which is how I choose my music inside the headunit. It has always worked really well for me, although I'm not sure if CarPlay supports VLC or any alternatives that might help you with this issue.

My wife is a carplay/spotify user and CarPlay in her Terrain doesn't let you search for artists at all so I understand the frustration. You've gotta grab the phone and manually search or just pick something that spotify *thinks* you want to listen to

 

[craigc]

My BMW has similar restrictions.

For BMW there's a dongle you can buy that allows a lot of protections to turn off, like Forscan. My BMW didn't have carplay, but it has a dvd player which, interestingly, you can disable the protection and it'll play a movie on the main screen while driving

I hope Forscan will allow turning off the protections mentioned in this post - those sound annoying.

 

[pablo94sc]

I don't think there are safety laws i the US for this. Like I said, my 2020 Hyundai doesn't restrict any settings while driving. My 5G Ranger was wired carplay only, so I attached the Car2Play adapter to have wireless Carplay, and it somehow bypassed the restrictions giving me full access. Now that wireless is already built-in, I don't know if there is a way to bypass.



I have ~140GB of music on my iphone. I'm not about to go out and spend more money on something else that duplicates the function I already have. For a call, I don't think you can use voice commands to dial numbers while you're already in an active call.

I get why you wouldn't, but Sync never worked well with playing music off my phone. My solution was an old ipod, but it works equally well with an SD card. Those are dirt cheap nowadays, so might as well buy a 128GB drive for $20 and be done with it.

 

[rwolfcastle]

*update*

I found this device that is supposed to trick the head unit into thinking the car is parked. This allows full function of Carplay and NAV keyboard, etc. while in motion.

https://naviks.com/i-24078412-2021-...tps://naviks.com/search.html?q=sync+4+carplay

The company said it should work for the Ranger as well. I'm just trying to decide if it's worth the trouble getting into the head unit to install it.

 

[DrIlyich]

I guess it varies per trim, but can you have wireless CarPlay on a Raptor trim or does it have to be plugged in?

 

[rwolfcastle]

I guess it varies per trim, but can you have wireless CarPlay on a Raptor trim or does it have to be plugged in?

As far as I know, it's wireless Carplay only. I haven't tried plugging it in though. I've just heard that if it's wireless Carplay, it doesn't allow you to plug it in, but I could be wrong about that.

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