Apple Prohibits Volkswagen CES Wireless CarPlay Demo

Apple has blocked Volkswagen from showing off wireless CarPlay at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), reports Car and Driver (via MacRumors).

“We wanted to demonstrate wireless CarPlay and the owner of CarPlay technology didn’t allow us to,” Volkmar Tannerberger, head of electrical and electronic development at Volkswagen, told Car and Driver.

Since the car maker didn’t receive the green light from Apple, it has used open-source wireless standard MirrorLink to demonstrate the ability of wirelessly connecting a smartphone to an in-car touchscreen.

At this point it is not yet clear why Apple prohibited Volkswagen from demonstrating wireless CarPlay, since Tannerberger refrained from divulging any more details. One of the possible reasons could be Apple’s push for control over all the elements of the wireless features that go public.

Apple has already introduced the ability to wirelessly connect an iPhone to CarPlay, but there is no infotainment system that supports it yet. A user of the Apple Support Communities speculated that it has to do with power consumption, since CarPlay currently uses too much juice.