CarPlay CarPlay not going to dark mode after night...

[Derek87]

prior to the pandemic (iOS 12 and 13), i had problems with Apple Maps on my phone (XS and 11 Pro), not going dark on CarPlay until sometimes a few hours after sunset. i could sometimes fix it by manually opening maps on my phone while connected via CarPlay.

fast forward to 2021 and iOS 14.6 (still iPhone 11Pro and my Pioneer 4500NEX) and the problem is not amazingly worse. for whatever reason, my head unit is not automatically going to dark mode after sunset (for the whole user interface)... i can of course force it to be Dark always but the auto detection isn't working although it was working fine in iOS12 and 13.

yet, regardless of the settings on my phone or the Pioneer, i cannot get Apple Maps to go into dark mode on display in the car. Google Maps, as it has before, always works properly so i have solution but i'm frustrated that i can't use Apple Maps at night without it being blindingly white, even though both my phone have forced into dark mode (one would think this would do the trick).

anyone else have this problem and have any solutions?

 

[Itinj24]

prior to the pandemic (iOS 12 and 13), i had problems with Apple Maps on my phone (XS and 11 Pro), not going dark on CarPlay until sometimes a few hours after sunset. i could sometimes fix it by manually opening maps on my phone while connected via CarPlay.

fast forward to 2021 and iOS 14.6 (still iPhone 11Pro and my Pioneer 4500NEX) and the problem is not amazingly worse. for whatever reason, my head unit is not automatically going to dark mode after sunset (for the whole user interface)... i can of course force it to be Dark always but the auto detection isn't working although it was working fine in iOS12 and 13.

yet, regardless of the settings on my phone or the Pioneer, i cannot get Apple Maps to go into dark mode on display in the car. Google Maps, as it has before, always works properly so i have solution but i'm frustrated that i can't use Apple Maps at night without it being blindingly white, even though both my phone have forced into dark mode (one would think this would do the trick).

anyone else have this problem and have any solutions?

Have you tried a hard reboot of the iPhone and/or tried unpairing the iPhone from CarPlay and re-pairing?

Edit*** I just vaguely recalled having a similar issue about two years ago. I believe it was linked to my dashboard/interior lights. If your car has one of those thumb wheels that adjusts the brightness of the dashboard, try rolling that to dim and make sure it isn’t past the interior light detent.

 

[Derek87]

good idea on unpairing and repairing phone. i've definitely tried rebooting my phone without any effect.

i've tested out my dimmer, headlights (auto or direct-on) with no effect.

 

[Itinj24]

good idea on unpairing and repairing phone. i've definitely tried rebooting my phone without any effect.

i've tested out my dimmer, headlights (auto or direct-on) with no effect.

Unless someone else has any input, last thing I can think of is try deleting and reinstalling the Apple Maps app. I didn’t realize it was a deletable stock app.

 

[Derek87]

thanks for these ideas. sorry for the slow follow up. i haven't had the chance to try either of these out since i injured my back and can't drive right now, let alone not having driven at night before i hurt my back. but i will follow up on these suggestions when possible.

 

[Derek87]

finally following up since i can get in the car again. no success removing the Apple Maps from my phone nor removing it from the car stereo and doing a new bluetooth connection and CarPlay setup. totally at a loss.

it's so strange, Waze and Google Maps work just fine.

 

[Itinj24]

finally following up since i can get in the car again. no success removing the Apple Maps from my phone nor removing it from the car stereo and doing a new bluetooth connection and CarPlay setup. totally at a loss.

it's so strange, Waze and Google Maps work just fine.

Can the head unit be rebooted or reset?

 

[Derek87]

i'm reluctant to do a full factory reset and lose all of my carefully curated settings and sound calibrations. i may reach out to apple, but i'm not sure they will have any insights. as i mentioned earlier, it did mostly work prior to ios14 so i suspect something happened in there. maybe by some luck, ios15 will solve the problem.

thankfully, i don't drive a lot at night and since Google Maps works properly, i have a reasonable workaround.

 

[Itinj24]

i'm reluctant to do a full factory reset and lose all of my carefully curated settings and sound calibrations. i may reach out to apple, but i'm not sure they will have any insights. as i mentioned earlier, it did mostly work prior to ios14 so i suspect something happened in there. maybe by some luck, ios15 will solve the problem.

thankfully, i don't drive a lot at night and since Google Maps works properly, i have a reasonable workaround.

Best of luck. I’m hoping iOS 15 fixes a lot of things for me, but I’m not holding my breath lol.

 

[Derek87]

not holding my breathe either...

i actually did reach out to apple and they suggested blasting my phone into recovery mode and trying to restore that. i know how to do that, but i'm not in the mood to invest the time for this problem since i have a workaround and don't drive much at night. i'm not annoyed enough to spend the time doing that.

 

[edvardv]

prior to the pandemic (iOS 12 and 13), i had problems with Apple Maps on my phone (XS and 11 Pro), not going dark on CarPlay until sometimes a few hours after sunset. i could sometimes fix it by manually opening maps on my phone while connected via CarPlay.

fast forward to 2021 and iOS 14.6 (still iPhone 11Pro and my Pioneer 4500NEX) and the problem is not amazingly worse. for whatever reason, my head unit is not automatically going to dark mode after sunset (for the whole user interface)... i can of course force it to be Dark always but the auto detection isn't working although it was working fine in iOS12 and 13.

yet, regardless of the settings on my phone or the Pioneer, i cannot get Apple Maps to go into dark mode on display in the car. Google Maps, as it has before, always works properly so i have solution but i'm frustrated that i can't use Apple Maps at night without it being blindingly white, even though both my phone have forced into dark mode (one would think this would do the trick).

anyone else have this problem and have any solutions?

Go to settings, then “Privacy”, then “Location Services”, scroll all the way down and go to System Services. Make sure to turn on “System Customization” and “Setting Time Zone”. Apparently this allows the interface to switch between dark and light based on location.

 

[goopxr]

Go to settings, then “Privacy”, then “Location Services”, scroll all the way down and go to System Services. Make sure to turn on “System Customization” and “Setting Time Zone”. Apparently this allows the interface to switch between dark and light based on location.

This helped me, it switched to the right light/dark mode immediately