New experimental CarPlay branch 🚘📲

[fethica]

Hey everyone!

Edit: The CarPlay support is now part of the main project, enabled in the SwiftRaion-CarPlay Target.

I created a new branch that supports CarPlay for the SwiftRadio

Also I created a step by step post to show how to implement this feature:

Add CarPlay support to Swift Radio

Cheers 🎉

[losgranos]

Yes! Thx

[iDevelopper]

You don't need a such workaround to make it to work on simulator.

            // Workaround to make the Now Playing working on the simulator:
            // Source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52818170/handling-playback-events-in-carplay-with-mpnowplayinginfocenter
            UIApplication.shared.endReceivingRemoteControlEvents()
            UIApplication.shared.beginReceivingRemoteControlEvents()

I have a radios application that support carPlay too and run in simulator without workaround (written in objC).

- (void)playableContentManager:(MPPlayableContentManager *)contentManager initiatePlaybackOfContentItemAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath completionHandler:(void (^)(NSError * _Nullable))completionHandler {
    
    SHOUTcastAPI *shout = _appDelegate.shoutCastAPI;
    
    NSUInteger indexCount = indexPath.length;
    NSUInteger tabIndex = [indexPath indexAtPosition:[indexPath length] - 1];
    
    Station *station;
    
    if ([indexPath indexAtPosition:0] == 1 && indexCount == 2) { // FAVORITES
        self.stations = [shout getFavoritesStations];
        station = self.stations[tabIndex];
    }
    else if ([indexPath indexAtPosition:0] == 2 && indexCount == 2) { // TOP 500
        station = [shout getTopStationForIndex:tabIndex];
        self.stations = [shout getTopStations];
    }
    else {
        if (indexCount == 3) {
            station = [shout getStationForIndex:tabIndex indexOfGenre:(unsigned long)[indexPath indexAtPosition:1]];
            self.stations = [shout getStationsForIndexOfGenre:(unsigned long)[indexPath indexAtPosition:1]];
        }
        else {
            station = [shout getStationForIndex:tabIndex indexOfSubgenre:[indexPath indexAtPosition:2] indexOfGenre:(unsigned long)[indexPath indexAtPosition:1]];
            self.stations = [shout getStationsForIndexOfSubgenre:(unsigned long)[indexPath indexAtPosition:2] indexOfGenre:(unsigned long)[indexPath indexAtPosition:1]];
        }
    }
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
        _station = station;
        [self play];
        
        completionHandler(nil);
    });
    
    // Update MPNowPlayingInfo
    [self updateUIWithTitle:nil andAlbumTitle:nil andArtwork:nil];
}

- (void)updateUIWithTitle:(NSString *)title andAlbumTitle:(NSString *)albumTitle andArtwork:(UIImage *)artworkImage
{
    // UI Update
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
                ...
                ...
                NSMutableDictionary *nowPlayingInfo = [[MPNowPlayingInfoCenter defaultCenter].nowPlayingInfo mutableCopy];
                if (!nowPlayingInfo) {
                    nowPlayingInfo = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
                }
                
                nowPlayingInfo[MPMediaItemPropertyArtist] = _stationLabel.text;
                nowPlayingInfo[MPMediaItemPropertyAlbumTitle] = albumTitle ? albumTitle : JMOLocalizedString(@"Unknown album", @"");
                nowPlayingInfo[MPMediaItemPropertyTitle] = _songLabel.text;
                nowPlayingInfo[MPMediaItemPropertyArtwork] = itemArtwork;
                if ([[[UIDevice currentDevice] systemVersion] floatValue] >= 10.0) {
                    nowPlayingInfo[MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyIsLiveStream] = @(1.0);
                    nowPlayingInfo[MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyMediaType] = @(MPNowPlayingInfoMediaTypeAudio);
                }
                nowPlayingInfo[MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyPlaybackRate] = self.isPlaying ? @(1.0) : @(0.0);
                nowPlayingInfo[MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyDefaultPlaybackRate] = self.isPlaying ? @(1.0) : @(0.0);
                
                [MPNowPlayingInfoCenter defaultCenter].nowPlayingInfo = nowPlayingInfo;
                ....
    });

MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyPlaybackRate is very important:

The documentation say:

MPNowPlayingInfoCenter
Use MPNowPlayingInfoCenter to populate the CarPlay Now Playing screen with information. MPNowPlayingInfoCenter allows you to specify metadata such as title, artist, elapsed time, playback queue, playback rate and album artwork.
When running your app in the Simulator, the media playback features are not the same as running on iPhone. On iPhone running CarPlay, the play button in the CarPlay Now Playing screen is automatically managed by iOS and changes state based on whether audio is playing. In contrast, the play button in the Simulator relies on the state of the playback rate in Now Playing Info Center. You should ensure that Now Playing Info Center always has the correct playback rate. When playback is stopped, be sure to set the MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyPlaybackRate property to 0.0.
Apple recommends you always supply a MPMediaItemPropertyPersistentID property.
If your app has the concept of a playback queue, set MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyPlaybackQueueIndex and MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyPlaybackQueueCount. Starting in iOS 10, this information is shown on the Now Playing screen.
If your app plays live streaming content, set MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyIsLiveStream to YES.

[analogcode]

@fethica is the man! 🎉🙏

[fethica]

Thanks for the feedback @iDevelopper I will check your code.

[urayoanm]

The best player and the best tutorial for Apple Car Play. I did try blatantly to implement the same by my own a time ago and now seeing your code so clean and detailed only i can say KUDOS! Thanks for share!

[DavidKalajdzic]

@fethica
But if we have not a paid account developer, we cannot test it with real phone??
When I opened https://developer.apple.com/contact/carplay/ it said that I have not the permission to view this page 🤨
Is there a solution for "free" out there ?

[fethica]

@DavidKalajdzic if you can't access the CarPlay form page with a regular account, so I think you have to get a paid developer account!

[sarafdar]

Even with this workaround -
UIApplication.shared.endReceivingRemoteControlEvents()
UIApplication.shared.beginReceivingRemoteControlEvents()

Nowplaying screen not appearing on the simulator, what could be the reason?
Please help.

[nimisis]

This works beautifully on XCode 10 but not so on XCode 11.0 beta (11M336w) running iOS 13... Anyone else just get a blue button?

[iDevelopper]

Yes

[tester89]

How can we make carPlayTab colorful instead of blue overlay?

[iDevelopper]

This is an Apple Simulator Bug in Xcode 11 beta. It works fine in a car!