{"id":430983,"date":"2026-05-16T19:41:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T19:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/430983\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T19:41:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T19:41:22","slug":"carplay-in-ios-26-adds-five-new-ways-to-customize-your-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/430983\/","title":{"rendered":"CarPlay in iOS 26 adds five new ways to customize your setup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t<img width=\"1600\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/carplay-ios-26-liquid-glass.jpg\" class=\"skip-lazy wp-post-image\" alt=\"CarPlay iOS 26\"  decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>CarPlay has gotten <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2025\/09\/16\/carplay-in-ios-26-heres-everything-new\/\" type=\"post\" id=\"1007097\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a lot of new features in iOS 26<\/a>, but Apple also now lets you customize your in-car setup more than ever with new settings. Here are five ways iOS 26 lets you customize CarPlay.<\/p>\n<p>#1: Smart Display Zoom<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1500\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/carplay-smart-display-zoom-ios-26.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1052355\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Smart Display Zoom is a <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2025\/09\/22\/carplay-in-ios-26-smart-display-zoom\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">unique new feature<\/a> that\u2019s meant to better optimize your CarPlay setup for the size and shape of your in-car display.<\/p>\n<p>Inside CarPlay\u2019s Settings app \u21fe Display you\u2019ll find the new Smart Display Zoom toggle, which is off by default.<\/p>\n<p>Note: Apple says the setting isn\u2019t available on every single car. But it should be present on most.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to get an idea of how Smart Display Zoom might look, <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2025\/09\/22\/carplay-in-ios-26-smart-display-zoom\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">check out our full gallery here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/carplay-sports-widget.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1048873\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Widgets have been around on iPhone for years, but iOS 26 finally brought them to CarPlay.<\/p>\n<p>Widgets live to the left of your CarPlay Home Screen, and depending on your screen size, you\u2019ll see anywhere from 1 to 3 widget stacks at a time.<\/p>\n<p>To customize the widgets in each stack, go to Settings on your iPhone, then General \u21fe CarPlay \u21fe Your Car \u21fe Widgets. Apple lets you add and remove widgets, with a max of five in each stack. You can also choose whether they use Smart Rotate or not.<\/p>\n<p>#3: New wallpapers<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/carplay-ios-26-wallpapers-new.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1052351\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>iOS 26 adds brand new wallpapers to CarPlay to make the interface feel fresh.<\/p>\n<p>There are <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2025\/09\/05\/ios-26-carplay-wallpapers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">six different color options<\/a> to choose from, all variants of the new default iPhone wallpaper.<\/p>\n<p>Each wallpaper dynamically changes depending on if you\u2019re using light mode or dark mode.<\/p>\n<p>You can change your CarPlay wallpaper from the in-car Settings app \u21fe Wallpaper.<\/p>\n<p>#4: Resize text<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/carplay-ios-26-large-text-accessibility.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1052348\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>The iPhone has long offered Accessibility settings to control text size across iOS. But <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2025\/05\/13\/ios-19-carplay-sound-recognition\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">for the first time<\/a>, iOS 26 enables similar text resizing in CarPlay.<\/p>\n<p>To resize the text size systemwide across CarPlay, follow three easy steps:<\/p>\n<p>Open the Settings app<\/p>\n<p>Tap Accessibility, then Text Size<\/p>\n<p>Tap a text size, and CarPlay will show a preview of the size below each number<\/p>\n<p>5: Change app icon appearance<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/carplay-ios-26-app-icon-appearance.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1052345\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Similar to how you can customize the look of app icons on your iPhone\u2019s Home Screen, CarPlay now lets you change icon appearance too.<\/p>\n<p>Inside CarPlay\u2019s Settings app, you can choose whether app icons have a Default, Dark, or Clear appearance. These can be customized for whether you\u2019re in light mode or dark mode.<\/p>\n<p>The clear appearance brings a more transparent Liquid Glass look to your CarPlay icons.<\/p>\n<p>What are your favorite ways to customize your CarPlay setup? Let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n<p>Best CarPlay accessories<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/9to5mac.com\" aria-label=\"Add 9to5Mac as a preferred source on Google\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"google-preferred-source-badge-dark\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/google-preferred-source-badge-dark.png\" alt=\"Add 9to5Mac as a preferred source on Google\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"google-preferred-source-badge-light\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767635229_987_google-preferred-source-badge-light.png\" alt=\"Add 9to5Mac as a preferred source on Google\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"disclaimer-affiliate\">FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. <a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/about\/#affiliate\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">More.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CarPlay has gotten a lot of new features in iOS 26, but Apple also now lets you customize&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[342,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-430983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}