Your brain jumps a little when you see the words “video in the car” next to CarPlay for the first time. Not because it’s shocking—every screen eventually turns into a TV—but because you can already imagine what will happen when it goes wrong: a slow crawl, a line of brake lights, and a driver who honestly believes that rolling traffic is the same as parked.
To its credit, Apple appears to have foreseen that very human vulnerability. CarPlay video is reportedly coming through “AirPlay video in the car,” with the obvious caveat that playback should only occur when you are not driving, according to reports circulating around iOS 26 and the more recent iOS 26.4 beta.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Feature | CarPlay video playback via “AirPlay video in the car” |
| Status | Emerging in iOS 26 / iOS 26.4 beta reporting; not universal yet |
| Core restriction | Video is intended for when the vehicle isn’t moving / parked |
| Gatekeeper | Automakers must explicitly enable support |
| Why Apple can say “yes” now | It’s framed as parked-only entertainment (EV charging, waiting) |
| Safety baseline | NHTSA recommends limiting visual-manual tasks; glances away ≤2 seconds and cumulative ≤12 seconds for tasks while driving |
| Authentic reference link | Apple’s CarPlay developer page referencing AirPlay video + MFi (developer.apple.com) |
EV charging sessions, airport pickup loops, and the little purgatory of sitting in a car outside a school gate while time passes are all presented as quality-of-life features for contemporary waiting. It makes sense to frame it that way. Additionally, it’s similar to placing a “do not touch” sign on a large red button.
Because Netflix isn’t actually the source of the temptation. The gray area is the temptation. The forward creep. The “mere glance.” Like a kettle you’re checking, the hand hovers close to the screen. It’s difficult to ignore how heavily our driving culture already relies on justifications—individuals justifying their actions as safe while engaging in actions that would be deemed ridiculous in any other setting.
Additionally, a small detail hidden within the reporting is more important than the feature itself: automakers have the authority to permit it or not. Because the automakers must decide whether they want the liability headache, even if Apple builds the capability and developers support it, it won’t be widely adopted. That’s the dashboard’s reality, not Apple being overly submissive.
The screen is part of a system that is controlled by the grim physics of a two-ton object traveling through space, safety regulations, lawsuits, and regulators.
There are receipts for the physics as well. Long looks away from the road are linked to a higher risk of crashes and near-crash incidents, according to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s distraction guidelines. The agency recommends designs that limit individual glances to two seconds or less and the total amount of time spent off the road for a task to twelve seconds or less. That pertains to tasks. A “task” is not what video is. With just enough originality to entice you to look again, videos are a sticky attention-trap that never lets up.
At this point, the “parked only” guarantee begins to seem like a courteous fabrication. For many drivers, being parked is a mental state, particularly in crowded cities where you can spend an hour “not really driving” while still stuck in heavy traffic.
The biggest safety risk may not even come from Apple’s intended use case, but rather from the inevitable workarounds that will be used, such as hacked triggers, aftermarket units, and the time-tested method of tricking the car into believing it is in a safe mode when it isn’t. In other in-car video situations, people talk about evading “parking brake” checks with the casual assurance of someone changing a lightbulb. The frightening aspect is that casualness.
CarPlay stands out because it has consistently been marketed as the “responsible” interface. large buttons. restricted app categories. a feeling that says, “Yeah, you have a phone, but act like an adult.” As a subtle reminder that Apple wants this to be managed rather than disorganized, the company even markets CarPlay as a safer way to use your iPhone while driving, and its developer-facing messaging regarding AirPlay video specifically links support to car systems and the MFi program.
Nevertheless, each new feature modifies the cabin’s emotional ambiance. Using a map app helps you stay on course. Music entertains you without taking away your attention.
The social contract is altered by video. All of a sudden, the car is a lounge as well as a means of transportation. Additionally, once the lounge is established, people begin to use it as such, even when the surroundings call for something different.
There is a truly practical, even endearing, version of this: an electric vehicle charging while watching a show, the cabin softly illuminated by the dashboard glow, rain ticking on the windshield, and time passing in a less wasteful manner. That’s the innocuous version, the one that appears nearly wholesome, the one that Apple will showcase, and the one that automakers will mention.
However, there are many edge cases on the road, and it is in these situations that safety design is embarrassed. Whether “parked-only video” remains parked-only after it enters the convoluted realm of third-party apps, automakers, and drivers who believe that rules are for other people is still up in the air. The easy part is the technology. The true test starts with the human element.
