Cafari Lite

The small, open part of Cafari: a web view on the CarPlay screen, pointed at YouTube's mobile site, and nothing else. An app delegate, two scene delegates and one view controller.

The full app also casts to Chromecast and AirPlay receivers, and its sideload builds live in that repository.

The car screen, playing a video handed over from the phone:

Browsing on the car screen, with the floating controls top left and the debug border switched on, which is the green outline showing exactly what area the page is given:

The phone window, which is where you sign in and search, since CarPlay offers a web view no keyboard. The status line on the right says whether a car screen is connected:

The car screen needs an entitlement Apple grants, per developer account, on request. It is com.apple.developer.carplay-video. Without it iOS never creates the car scene, and this app is a web browser on the phone and nothing more. A free Apple ID cannot hold the entitlement, and a paid account does not get it automatically: you ask Apple for it at https://developer.apple.com/contact/carplay/ and they decide.

So the entitlement is not enabled in the checked-in project. A clone builds and runs for anyone, phone-only. If Apple has granted it to your account, see "Turning the car screen on" below.

Two scenes. The phone's window is the ordinary one. The car's is a plain UIWindowScene under the role UIWindowSceneSessionRoleCarPlay, declared in Info.plist. Because it is a window scene rather than a CarPlay template scene, anything UIKit can draw appears on the head unit and takes touches from it, a web view included.

The one non-obvious line: UIKit does not expose that role in Swift. There is no member for it on UISceneSession.Role, so the code builds it from the raw string, the same string the scene manifest uses:

let cafariLiteCarPlayRole = UISceneSession.Role(rawValue: "UIWindowSceneSessionRoleCarPlay")

Each window gets its own WKWebView. A web view lives in one window at a time, so sharing one between the phone and the car means it disappears from whichever screen it just left.

No Xcode UI needed. Xcode itself has to be installed, for the toolchain and the SDK, but nothing here opens it.

git clone https://github.com/rPlayAI/cafari-lite.git
cd cafari-lite
cp Local.xcconfig.example Local.xcconfig     # then edit it, see below
tools/run-on-device.sh                       # builds, signs, installs

run-on-device.sh picks the first attached, unlocked iPhone. With more than one connected, name it:

xcrun devicectl list devices                 # copy the identifier
DEVICE=<identifier> tools/run-on-device.sh

Values can come from the environment instead of the file, which is what CI would do:

BUNDLE_ID=com.you.cafarilite TEAM=ABCDE12345 tools/run-on-device.sh

The script prints which CarPlay entitlements ended up in the signed app, so you can see at a glance whether this build can reach the car screen.

Signing is read from Signing.xcconfig, whose last line includes Local.xcconfig if it exists. That file is git-ignored, so your team and bundle id never show up in git status and never land in a pull request.

open CafariLite.xcodeproj and run. It reads the same Local.xcconfig, so the two routes agree.

CarPlay cannot be tested in the Simulator: the entitlements cannot be embedded in a Simulator build, so there is nothing to test there.

Only once Apple has granted your account both CarPlay entitlements, video and audio. Video alone is not enough: the app builds, installs and runs on the phone, and simply never appears on the head unit, with no error anywhere.

Set CAFARI_LITE_ENTITLEMENTS = CarPlay.entitlements in your Local.xcconfig, build again, and connect to CarPlay.

If the entitlements are missing the build fails to sign, which is the intended failure: it is clearer than an app that installs and then shows nothing in the car.

The app writes to Documents/lite.log inside its container: scene connections, window and panel sizes, navigation, and the parked gate. Pull it without a cable in the way:

xcrun devicectl device copy from --device <identifier> \
  --domain-type appDataContainer --domain-identifier <your bundle id> \
  --source Documents/lite.log --destination ./lite.log

• Playback is whatever the site does in a web view. No downloads, no background playback, no DRM-protected services.
• The head unit's own rules still apply. Some cars restrict what is shown while the vehicle is moving.
• Apple can withdraw or change this scene role in any iOS release. Treat the car screen as something that works today rather than something guaranteed.

MIT, see LICENSE. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Apple or YouTube. CarPlay is a trademark of Apple Inc.