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:
- Whether a Live Activity push-to-start or update plays an audible sound when the phone is locked and CarPlay is connected.
- 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.