After scanning the forum for Carplay posts, which stop mid-summer, it would seem the consensus might be summarized as: ARC is not quite ready to interface with Carplay.
Would anyone be willing to update this assessment? I do not have Carplay, but am looking to buy a car which does (Toyota Crown if it matters), and I’d like to know the pros and cons of ARC and carplay.
I use it most days, and it works fine. When I have an issue, it is with ARC and not CarPlay, e.g., the poor signal message, once clear, blocks progress–the track affected will continue to stall indefinitely—necessitating an ARC app restart, which can’t be done when driving.
Since CarPlay has no search, I usually queue music ahead of the journey, or use a playlist for that purpose. I have CarPlay in two vehicles (2016 and 2019 models) and good results in both.
By and large, CarPlay has improved with each update.
I am in and out of my car most days doing short journeys.
Sometimes CarPlay works and starts music playback as soon as I have the car stereo up and running, sometimes it doesn’t and it’s a pain in the backside to get running.
For some weird reason when I get back in my car after a short stop i.e. picking my children up from school CarPlay playback starts and the progress bar is seen to move but no music comes out (ironically this has been going on with my old Zeppelin Air at home for at least six months) and, again its a pain to get the music to start. I have to stop the engine, go into my phone, kill the ARC app, restart it and start playback from the iPhone.
ARC is really unreliable for me but too be honest I’m not sure if some of that is down to my router at home and I don’t know how to find out. I purchased a new ASUS RT AX88U earlier this year and I’m wondering whether it’s a good fit for Roon.
Its one of those cases of its reliable for some and frustratingly annoying for others.
You’ll also find lots of posts about album not displaying at all or incorrectly with ARC and CarPlay. This is a known bug and has been an issue for over 6 months, still not working.
I have the same impression.
For me this was resolved with the latest Firmware release.
LD
Is this with downloaded tracks as well or only when online and connected to Core?
Both are now visible in CarPlay, but as said before sometimes ARC doesn’t function in the car.
LD
This evening:
This is good to read. I get the impression that Arc has some functionality within Carplay, but could stand some improvement. Thanks for your impressions.
For CarPlay, I use ARC only in offline mode with music downloaded from my own library; I use Qobuz to only play imported (aka downloaded) music that’s not in my library. In other words, I play what’s already on the phone without going through cellular network. Functionalities in each app are limited and cause frustration.
Does this mean the latest ARC release or are you referring to the firmware of your car or possibly phone?
I’m pretty sure I still experience no album art as well as playback issues with the latest version of ARC. What I’ve found is that force quitting ARC one the phone (when experiencing issues) and allowing it to relaunch tends to gets things working more predictably. I don’t have similar issues with other audio apps that support CarPlay.
I always use the latest ARC Firma, also on my iPhone (iOS 16.6.1). For the car, there were no recent updates. But I think that the car’s infotainment system also plays a roll. My connection is by USB cable (not wireless).
Indeed sometimes I just doesn’t work (ARC needs a decent 4G or 5G connection I think), but then restarting the car and the connection mostly helps.
But when it works (mostly) it works well, and I have album art (see my pictures).
LD
I’ve downloaded the latest version of ARC and whilst all works correctly whilst online ARC still doesn’t display artwork for downloaded tracks for me. Given the number of people complaining about the issue I would have thought Roon would announce a fix when available - they have already confirmed its a known bug.
There must be some use cases where this works given @Ljad experience
I use is most days and it is getting better. Biggest annoyance is really that it doesn’t default to the “now playing” screen when it starts and resumes play. I have much less reason to restart the app recently and while album covers don’t always update immediately they usually do within a minute or so.
Last time I was out of cell service in and out using downloaded tracks it would repeatedly warn me of no connection which was annoying but at least it would keep playing.
I also use it just about every day and it works fairly well for me. I have to agree it would be nice to have Now Playing as the default, though it is easy enough to just click it. The only thing I would complain about is it tends to cause the iPhone to run warm and it seems to suck up the battery. But I enjoy it, it performs much better than I anticipated!
It’s frustrating; sometimes it just doesn’t load at all, or takes forever. I just give up and change to Sirius XM
I totally agree with Gerald, there’s nothing to do for me, iOS updates, App updates, Car updates nothing work. For me ARC is a great idea but completely useless.
Thanks, yes totally useless.
I have the exact same experience as you my biggest annoyance and it’s been driving me insane from day one. The dreaded Resume play never works for me! Always have to load the app on my iPhone before getting in the car for the resume play to Work which I always forget, I’m very responsible and pull over to do this honest 
Other than that it is a lot better each update for me to
I stopped using it. I have a commute and don’t like to fuss with things once I’m on highway. As others are describing, it is very inconsistent whether it picks up where you last left off. I know it is in beginning phases - I do hope it improves ( I WANT to use it, but really spoiled by native apple apps like Apple Music ).
Additionally a couple wish list items:
Ability to use fields I have setup to find what I want quicker
Ability to change how library sorts (e.g. alpanumerically instead of by date used/created)