Apple IOS 26 pretty cool - we finally got CarPlay widgets (clocks, weather and more)

[John E Davies]

EDIT 09/23/25 you have to FIRST update the iPhone software to IOS 26- the Widgets feature will not work on older versions. I thought it was self explanatory, but there has been a little confusion about this… JD

I just installed the new IOS, there are some things I really dislike, like the Liquid Glass (I turned off Transparency right away). But the new Widgets feature in CarPlay is so very cool! It is accessed by swiping right to get to a new fourth window. Once on that page, swipe up or down to see other widgets. I have been trying to get a good legible analog clock, I just can't read tiny digital ones. You can choose several Wallpapers - I chose a dark red one that went well with the RR red trim. These pics do not show the sharp quality.

I added a Batteries widget - it shows iPhone, Apple Watch and both hearing aids:

And a Windy weather widget:

If you don't like the Wallpaper on the Widget page, you can turn OFF the slider at the very bottom. The Ford display will only accept five widgets. A wide and narrow (vertically) one can accept two columns of five.

Here is a clock with a black (no) background.

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

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[stemplar]

I wonder if we can finally get an OBD reader as a widget? There are some pretty useful and/or cool "dashboards" I can display on my phone when paired with my OBDLink MX+, but I really want them on my center screen and not my phone.

 

[John E Davies]

I wonder if we can finally get an OBD reader as a widget? There are some pretty useful and/or cool "dashboards" I can display on my phone when paired with my OBDLink MX+, but I really want them on my center screen and not my phone.

I can already use OBD Fusion as a CarPlay App, but it is crippled....I haven't used it in a long time, I was not impressed at that time. I don't think you can use it as a Widget, through that might come on a future OBD Fusion update. Streaming real time data accurately by wifi is not ideal.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/obd-fusion/id650684932

As an aside - onX Offroad nav with pre-downloaded maps is STELLAR in a Ranger. I love it.

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

 

[LordRaptor]

CarPlay 26 should allow us to airplay video from your iPhone to it (YouTube, etc.), but I saw somewhere that the car company has to allow it. Anyone else have more information on that? Would be nice to do this without needing any mods.

 

[Sauce]

I just installed the new IOS, there are some things I really dislike, like the Liquid Glass (I turned off Transparency right away). But the new Widgets feature in CarPlay is so very cool! It is accessed by swiping right to get to a new fourth window. Once on that page, swipe up or down to see other widgets. I have been trying to get a good legible analog clock, I just can't read tiny digital ones. You can choose several Wallpapers - I chose a dark red one that went well with the RR red trim. These pics do not show the sharp quality.

I added a Batteries widget - it shows iPhone, Apple Watch and both hearing aids:

And a Windy weather widget:

If you don't like the Wallpaper on the Widget page, you can turn OFF the slider at the very bottom. The Ford display will only accept five widgets. A wide and narrow (vertically) one can accept two columns of five.

Here is a clock with a black (no) background.

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

Windy widget on my truck screen?!?! sick! Now I just need ikite and surfline.

 

[SubZombie]

Been using it for a few months. The widgets are a letdown for me as I don't like one screen with a smaller Apple Watch widget in the middle. I wish you could change the bottom left widget on the Home Screen to whatever you wanted. My favorite parts of it are the larger maps (CarPlay now scales correctly to any resolution/aspect ratio, it didn't used to) and customizing the look of the icons.

I also really wish they would update our screens to allow us to hide the HVAC controls or compress them down to the bottom so we could use more of the touchscreen. I know some people like them handy but realistically for me I set it to auto and never touch it and if I do want to there are physical controls.

 

[LordRaptor]

Been using it for a few months. The widgets are a letdown for me as I don't like one screen with a smaller Apple Watch widget in the middle. I wish you could change the bottom left widget on the Home Screen to whatever you wanted. My favorite parts of it are the larger maps (CarPlay now scales correctly to any resolution/aspect ratio, it didn't used to) and customizing the look of the icons.

I also really wish they would update our screens to allow us to hide the HVAC controls or compress them down to the bottom so we could use more of the touchscreen. I know some people like them handy but realistically for me I set it to auto and never touch it and if I do want to there are physical controls.

I wonder if it’s because the regular Ranger users don’t have the physical knobs, and they don’t feel like diverging the software revisions into two separate updates for regular and RR…

 

[purdyd]

Windy widget on my truck screen?!?! sick! Now I just need ikite and surfline.

Surfline tide is a widget

i guess a like the ole analog clock best

 

[skinnyjimmy]

Super cool stuff! Love CarPlay and hope Apple continues to make improvements like this.
I do agree that the Liquid Glass UI is horrible. The contrast is horrible and makes things hard to read at times. I also turned off transparency as soon as I could

 

[KDub]

Need widget to display full screen image for nosey motorists like “WTF are you looking at?” etc.

 

[purdyd]

Anyone got any idea what the resolution of the carplay Screen is?

and there is this app called clockology where you can create your own clock face CarPlay widget.

and you can make a clock pretty easily from default parameters but it appears the real hot designers create images for the hands and face.

 

[AMGRAPTOR]

CarPlay 26 should allow us to airplay video from your iPhone to it (YouTube, etc.), but I saw somewhere that the car company has to allow it. Anyone else have more information on that? Would be nice to do this without needing any mods.

This is what I’ve read as well. Ford will need to make a software update for us to use AirPlay while in park. The widgets are broke. I have grok and chat gpt as widgets but when I press to speak nothing happens. We should also be able to stack 3-4 widgets with our screen size also not working.

 

[BriSco]

I wonder if it’s because the regular Ranger users don’t have the physical knobs, and they don’t feel like diverging the software revisions into two separate updates for regular and RR…

My "regular" Ranger has knobs. I believe every model has them.

 

[LordRaptor]

My "regular" Ranger has knobs. I believe every model has them.

Really? I thought they didn’t have certain controls like AC, and was done all through touch-screen

 

[BriSco]

Really? I thought they didn’t have certain controls like AC, and was done all through touch-screen

There are large and small screens, I have the 12" display.

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