The issue is that the car tries to decide which phone to have take over CarPlay. I actually have a cigarette lighter USB adapter so at least a second person can charge without confusing the poor car.

I generally find CarPlay to be annoying -- it is too limiting a version of what is offered on the phone itself. Notably the last time I tried to use it, it did not have Google Play Music support (now that product is dead, and I suppose by now they probably do support Youtube Music), and it refused to let me use maps in a "north-up" orientation, which is just a non-starter for me.

> Notably the last time I tried to use it, it did not have Google Play Music support (now that product is dead...

I can't speak to CarPlay but Android Auto has changed a ton in that time frame. I think both options are just reaching an actual maturity recently as there is both decent support in a number of vehicles and a notable user base that actually uses the technology. You were certainly an early adopter, code for beta tester.

If Apple Maps does not let you navigate in north up orientation, then another navigation app should be able to. It does not seem like that would be a CarPlay specific restriction, but rather something the app makers did not implement.

And there are a lot more apps that work with CarPlay nowadays. I think it just took a few years for all of them to roll out.

I use Google Maps even with non-CarPlay interaction because Apple Maps does not do north-up. At the time, Google Maps didn't do north-up in CarPlay mode. Maybe it's time I give it another try. Last I tried it, I found generally that things worked less good in CarPlay than they did on the phone itself, and decided to mostly treat the infotainment system as a nice set of speakers for my phone.

Wireless CarPlay hasn't been reliable in my experience either, which is unfortunate. Even if it's not flaky (it is), the audio quality of music being played sounds highly compressed compared to plugging in.