On November 15, 2023, Apple released an introduction to the next generation of CarPlay.The new Ferrite is an experience that combines the automaker's features, branding, and design elements with Apple's look and feel. It's an experience for all driver screens.Ferrite will only support wireless connectivity, not wired.

The differences in features supported by CarPlay and Ferrite are listed below:

Ferrite Hardware Requirements: Ferrite's have the following hardware requirements in addition to reproducing the base that has CarPlay requirements:

Full digital driver display, including instrument cluster (60 Hz, sRGB 8-bit color gamut)

HEVC (H.265) video decoder

Hardware-accelerated graphics architecture with support for OpenGL ES 3.0 or higher

Instant display Ferrite UI

Audio hardware support for enhanced buffering and voice Siri

Square control support for dashboard control

Ferrite Power Requirements: Ferrite is a wireless system, so USB is not required; however, the car should provide either wireless power or a USB port to charge the iPhone. Wireless power accessories must support Qi v1.2.3 or higher.

Car Key functionality: Ferrite is recommended to support Car Key functionality (not mandatory)

I. Theme Modes

Ferrite has introduced several well-designed theme modes available for users to choose from. Each theme option appears on the dashboard display, while the car manufacturer's theme will be displayed by default, which is jointly developed by Apple and car manufacturers (this theme is kept secret for the time being), and, of course, users are free to choose their own favorite themes.

II. Dashboard Display

Ferrite can include the following dashboard display UI, each Ferrite theme defines two areas in the dashboard that can be used to display temporary content and notifications, the location, size, and shape of these areas may vary from theme to theme, important driver information and overlay UI is always shown and never hidden. Other areas may be temporarily obscured to display temporary content and notifications.

Tachometer

Tachometer

Power consumption and power

Transmission status, including gears, shift recommendations, and transmission mode

Driving modes

Adaptive cruise control target and predicted target speeds

Engine temperature

Battery temperature

Battery level, including indicators

Fuel level

Remaining mileage

III. Main Display

The Ferrite's main display includes a complete infotainment UI consisting of content from multiple rendering sources. The center display incorporates aspects of the instrument cluster's design language to provide a unified and consistent experience.

The center display includes a status bar, climate bar for quick climate control, general application areas, and widgets on larger displays. The center display also has a wide range of vehicle features, including detailed climate control and seat settings, media and radio, backup camera and vehicle manufacturer settings.

Climate Control: With Ferrite, the driver can manage the vehicle's environmental characteristics, including temperature, vents, fans, recirculation, defrosting, steering wheel, seats (heated, cooled, fans, massage) and more.

Media and Broadcast: Ferrite supports both iPhone and Vehicle audio sources and has a dedicated UI for Media and Broadcast with the following audio types:

iPhone audio sources (Music App)

Vehicle audio sources with Ferrite ((AM, FM, DAB, FM and DAB, SiriusXM))

Vehicle audio feed with metadata (Bluetooth music, USB music)

Vehicle Manufacturer Settings: Ferrite includes a flexible extension mechanism that automakers can use to quickly generate UI for a variety of vehicle-specific settings. the vehicle simply specifies the type of setting and Ferrite handles the visual display.

Notifications: For all notifications, the vehicle controls the lifecycle of the notification, including when the notification should be displayed or canceled and whether the notification should be rejected by the user. If there are multiple notifications, the vehicle will be responsible for determining the priority order and which notification to display, as only one notification can be displayed at a time. All notifications in the main display are remote notifications. Remote notifications are generic notifications presented by the iPhone and are generated at runtime using custom text labels and support user interaction.

Microtest Advantage

As a leading company in Telematics testing, Microtest gathers outstanding technical talents and industry engineering elites, with leading Telematics testing capabilities, covering performance testing, acoustic testing, software protocol testing, road test system; and also with automotive electronics EMC, RF, Bluetooth BQB, wireless charging Qi and other testing capabilities. We are agile and efficient project management, comply with rigorous internal quality control processes, to provide customers with subtle test results, to avoid the risk of testing from the source, shorten the product certification cycle.

Since its inception, MicroTest has successfully completed testing and certification projects for more than 20 car companies, navigation and more than 100 supply chain companies for 200+ products such as Apple CarPlay, ITU Language Quality, Google Android Auto, Baidu CarLife, HUAWEI HiCar, etc. MicroTest has accumulated a large amount of experience in testing and certification projects for the Telematics, and has established a wealth of well-established cooperation with the Telematics industry chain. We have accumulated a lot of experience in car networking testing and certification projects, and have established a rich and perfect cooperation and symbiosis ecosystem of the car-machine interconnection industry chain, which brings multi-dimensional service guarantee for customers.

For more information, please feel free to contact us.

24-hourhotline: 13143431439

E-mail: mti@51mti.com