While CarPlay offers great functionality with its built-in apps, underrated apps like VLC, SpotHero, and more can make your CarPlay experience even better.
Apple CarPlay brings the best of your iPhone experience into your car, truck, or other means of transportation with wheels and a screen. iOS 26 introduced a number of features and improvements to the Apple infotainment tool, including a revamped design courtesy of the all-new Liquid Glass UI. Apple also went ahead and added widgets to its vehicle dashboard, giving users a convenient, at-a-glance look at messages, navigation, smart home controls, and more. You can enable these essential widgets by heading to the CarPlay settings on your iPhone.
Beyond the basic vehicle-friendly apps like Spotify, Waze, and Audible, there’s a vast collection of third-party tools that take your CarPlay experience to the next level — and many of these apps are free. Apps such as these help you find parking or EV charging stations, and even let you stream your favorite audio content. Here are some of the most underrated CarPlay apps to get the most out of your vehicle’s infotainment system.SpotHero
We all know the pains of having to find a parking spot in an unfamiliar place, a challenge further complicated when driving in a big, busy city. Fortunately, the SpotHero app is here to save the day and is free to download for iOS and CarPlay. Right from your vehicle’s infotainment screen, you’ll be able to search for parking, book a spot, and set up navigation to your car’s temporary home. You can also save destinations to a favorites list for places you often visit.
In order for CarPlay syncing to work, your iPhone needs to be running iOS 14 or later. You’ll also want to make sure you have a payment method other than Apple Pay, saved to the app for reservations, as well as your phone number, vehicle make, model, and license plate.
