CarPlay suppresses local notification sound app-wide — does a Live Activity alert behave differently?

App & System Services CarPlay
Lwwopf26 OP
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I've confirmed through controlled testing that local notification sound is suppressed app-wide whenever CarPlay is connected, for an app with no CarPlay entitlement. Tested:

  • Sound plays normally with CarPlay disconnected
  • Sound is silent with CarPlay connected — confirmed by repeatedly connecting/disconnecting CarPlay with the identical notification, nothing else changed
  • No difference with phone locked vs. unlocked
  • No difference with Driving Focus on vs. off
  • No difference with interruptionLevel set to .active vs. .timeSensitive

Device: iPhone 13, iOS 26.6.2. Head unit: 2024 Toyota Tacoma (CarPlay).

My app has no CarPlay entitlement (not navigation/audio/EV/parking/food- ordering), so I suspect this suppression may be intentional — but I can't find it documented anywhere.

Given that, I'm looking at iOS 26 Live Activities as an alternative, since Apple's docs say a Live Activity can appear on the CarPlay Dashboard without a CarPlay entitlement. But I can't find documentation on:

  1. Whether a Live Activity push-to-start or update plays an audible sound when the phone is locked and CarPlay is connected.
  2. Whether Live Activity content backed by data-protection class A/B storage reliably renders in this state (separate widget guidance warns this "likely won't work in CarPlay" since phones are usually locked — unclear if this applies to ActivityKit content specifically).

Has anyone tested this, or know if it's documented somewhere I'm missing? Trying to figure out if Live Activities are a viable path to a driver- audible alert for a non-CarPlay-entitled app, before I invest more engineering time in it.

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Lwwopf26 OP

Correction to my original post: NearBuy does have the CarPlay driving-task entitlement (com.apple.developer.carplay-driving-task), and the app appears on the CarPlay home screen. The suppression I described happens with that entitlement present.

Environment: iPhone 13, iOS 26.6.2, 2024 Toyota Tacoma (CarPlay).

What I'm seeing:

  • In NearBuy, UNUserNotificationCenter.getNotificationSettings() returns carPlaySetting = notSupported (alert, sound, lock screen and time-sensitive settings are all enabled).
  • Apple's Reminders app, on the same phone and in the same car, has a "Show in CarPlay" option in Settings > Notifications. NearBuy's notification settings have no such option.
  • A location-based reminder from Reminders appeared on the CarPlay screen over my navigation app. NearBuy local notifications (sound enabled, timeSensitive) are silent in CarPlay. A banner occasionally appears, but with no sound.

Question: what entitlement, category or configuration makes a third-party app's carPlaySetting become enabled so that its notifications can appear in CarPlay? Is that limited to CarPlay navigation apps, or can a driving-task app qualify?

Feedback Assistant case: 21373595