Toyota and Lexus vehicles will finally start getting CarPlay this year

Toyota has been a holdout from CarPlay, Apple’s in-dash infotainment system that works with your iPhone. The automaker and its luxury brand Lexus have yet to offer it in any models, despite most other car companies giving in on at least a few vehicles (which tends to later to broader rollout thereafter).

The new 2019 Toyota Avalon will have CarPlay on board, however. The vehicle was unveiled today, and Toyota confirmed that it’ll have support for Apple’s system at launch. No mention of Android Auto, unfortunately, which could mean Google mobile OS smartphone fans are still out of luck for the foreseeable future.

Toyota announced that Alexa would be coming to some of its vehicles via the Entune 3.0 (Toyota) and Enform 2.0 (Lexus) infotainment system updates, but now we know that CarPlay will also be part of the package on these stems for some vehicles going forward. It’s not yet clear how many 2019 year models will include CarPlay support, or whether this will also be coming to older vehicles that are getting the Entune 3.0 and Enform 2.0 updates.

Automakers seem to have been reluctant to allow both Android Auto and CarPlay on their platforms initially, but most are coming around – and I’m willing to bet customer feedback is a big reason why.