Aston Martin DBX (SUV)

New Apple CarPlay Ultra tested: hands-on with every new feature

Not content with owning your wrist, desktop, ears and eyeballs, Apple is about to take over your car

If you own an iPhone and don’t drive a car inherited from your grandparents, chances are you’ll know all about Apple CarPlay - the now ubiquitous software that lets you mirror your smartphone onto your car’s infotainment screen for a familiar-looking and easy-to-use way of accessing navigation apps, podcasts, music, messages and more. Well, that’s now officially old-tech because the next-gen CarPlay – CarPlay Ultra – has launched, and we’ve had a play.

Apple first announced the existence of a next-generation CarPlay system way back in 2022, and then it all went a bit quiet until two videos were released at its 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), offering more details on what it would look like and how it would work. And now in Spring 2025 we’ve finally got our hands on it… in an Aston Martin DBX 707.

Below we explain all the new features, why Aston got to go first and when you can get your hands on it, but before that we need to understand how this new system operates differently. The old system was simply a mirror of your phone and selected apps. You plugged in or connected wirelessly, all the computing was done on the phone and the car displayed that info like a monitor. Here there’s a lot more going on.

There’s still some stuff that’s mirrored and computed on the phone, but that’s now mixed in with what they call ‘local UI’ - info that’s being taken directly from the car - like fuel level, speed or climate controls and shown through Apple’s interface, with that signature pared-back, easy-on-the-eye aesthetic. Then on top of that there’s something called ‘punch-through UI’ - where Apple allows stuff from the car’s native system to show up in CarPlay, like the feed from the reversing camera.

 
Watch Aston’s DBX S beat Bentley up the hill at Goodwood

Bentley claims hillclimb record… then Aston comes along and beats it

Bentley sent its twin-turbo V8 Bentayga SUV up the Goodwood Festival of Speed’s hillclimb over the weekend. It managed a time of 55.8s, which it claimed as a new Goodwood record.

Aston saw that, and presumably said ‘hold my zero per cent beer’, because it decided to send its also-twin-turbo-V8 DBX S up the hill, recording a time of 53.12s.

Which means the DBX S is now the fastest internal combustion SUV at Goodwood.

“We’ve always loved a challenge,” runs Aston Martin’s Instagram comment. Ouchy.


 
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