How to get CarPlay on Android (the honest answer)

Let us answer the question honestly in the first line, because it saves you from a frustrating afternoon: you cannot get Apple CarPlay on an Android phone. CarPlay is Apple software, tied to iPhone and iOS. There is no download, no workaround, no hidden setting that puts real CarPlay on a Pixel, Galaxy, or any other Android phone.

That is the honest part. The useful part is that you almost certainly do not need CarPlay specifically, you need what it gives you, and Android does that well. We build one such app (Car Dashboard), so this has a stake, but the facts here are straight.

Why "CarPlay for Android" apps mislead

Search the Play Store and you will find apps with "CarPlay" in the name. They are using Apple's trademark to catch search traffic. None of them is actual CarPlay, they cannot be, because Apple does not license it to Android. At best they are dashboard launchers wearing a misleading label. Judge them on what they do, not the name.

What you actually want

When people search "CarPlay on Android," they want one of two experiences:

1. A clean driving cockpit on the phone, big speed, maps, music, calls, glanceable tiles.
2. Phone apps on the car's built-in screen.

Android can do both, just not by calling it CarPlay.

For a cockpit on your phone: a dashboard launcher

If you want the CarPlay feeling, big tiles, one clean screen, on your phone, you want a dashboard launcher. Mount the phone, run the app, and you have a CarPlay-style cockpit in any car.

Car Dashboard is exactly this: a landscape screen with a big glanceable speedometer, clock, weather, 3D maps, music, radio and hands-free calling, dark for night. It is a CarPlay-style launcher, honestly labeled: it does not mirror to a car head unit, it makes the phone the screen. Coming soon on Google Play.

For apps on the car's screen: Android Auto

If you specifically want your apps on the car's display, Android's equivalent to CarPlay is Android Auto, and it needs a compatible head unit. See CarPlay vs Android Auto and, if your car does not support it, Android Auto alternatives.

The honest bottom line

• Real Apple CarPlay on Android: not possible, ever, it is iPhone-only.
• The CarPlay experience on Android: absolutely possible with a dashboard launcher on a mounted phone.
• Apps on your car's screen: that is Android Auto, on a compatible car.

Stop hunting for CarPlay itself and get the experience instead. A dashboard launcher gives you the clean cockpit CarPlay is famous for, on any Android phone, in any car. That is what Car Dashboard is built to be.