I bought today’s ultimate gadget about a month ago – after hearing all about it from one of our clients. It’s a Volvo XC90, and I am having a blast with the benefits of Apple Car Play. For me, it’s the ultimate connected car. The car’s capabilities range from infotainment to assisting me with driving it.

Driving assistance is absolutely amazing. Its adaptive cruise control matches the speed of traffic, and in heavy traffic, it will almost bring the car to a complete stop on its own. With Pilot Assist, it helps you handle bumper-to-bumper traffic more easily. If the lines on the road are visible to its camera system and radar detects a car in front of you, it will follow that car at speeds of 25 MPH or lower. If traffic starts to speed up, it will disengage or you can disable it with a light tap on the gas pedal.

Other connectivity features run off the system’s own SIM card, and you can connect devices to its own Wi-Fi system just as you would to your home network. (Yes, that can eat up a lot of data on anybody’s plan, but…) Remote starting from your cell phone is handy, and the ability to track your mileage on your phone and download the information to an appropriate app is a great convenience.

For those of you who are familiar with all the features of your iPhone, Apple Car Play gives you a lot of same features and capabilities for your phone, maps, messaging and music. I can speak an address or the name of a store or restaurant into Siri, and Google Maps will activate with directions.

If you are using the car’s navigation system and talking on the phone, you don’t have to worry about directions drowning out your conversation or missing a turn. The system emits two tones to alert you that a turn is coming.

One other Apple Car Play feature is the unlimited number of phone numbers it can store. Our old car had a system that only stored 1000 phone numbers. If you have a contact base and two phone numbers for each contact, for example, you would only be able to access the first 500 contacts. This is a huge upgrade. Software updates are delivered automatically.

You can read more and see videos about its features and how they work. You can also find a list of cars that have Apple Car Play or will have it soon. We love its seamless operation. If you’re thinking about a new car this year, consider one that has Apple Car Play. If you have any questions, call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us. We can also help you with the complexities of setting it up, but that will require an on-site visit.