Apple Releases iOS 7.1 Update, Introduces CarPlay Support & Adds Other Enhancements

We talked a bit last week about Apple’s CarPlay, an upcoming car dash front-end, and with the just-released iOS 7.1 update, support for it has arrived. It might take some time for autos to be released that support CarPlay, but Apple has promised that we’ll see some from the likes of Ferrari, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedez-Benz, and Volvo during 2014, and many more in the future.

For iPhone users, CarPlay looks like it could become a must-have feature, so we’d hope that in time, car makers that offer it at all might also offer a service where it can be retrofitted into older models – it’d suck to miss out on such a feature on a modern car, after all. Whether that will actually happen, we’re not sure.

Nonetheless, iOS 7.1 brings other important features as well, including general refinements that should improve performance on all iPhones dating back to the iPhone 4. As minor a tweak as it might seem, those who make good use of Siri should appreciate the new ability to start and stop Siri’s listening by holding-down the Home button. For photographers, the auto HDR feature might come in handy – but it’s only available on the iPhone 5s due to its higher-performing processor.

iOS 7.1 also brings a couple of important bug fixes, including one that risked the chance of a Home screen screen which would close every app that was open, potentially losing work. Suffice to say, you want to update, and you can do so by going into your Settings screen, then General, and finally, tapping Software Update.