Unlock your car with an iPhone - finally coming to more automobiles.
Apple launched a super-cool feature on July 16, 2021. Digital Car Keys is Apple’s name for it, though many people colloquially refer to it as CarKey. It was revealed by Apple at WWDC in June 2021, and the company studiously avoided calling it by that shorter name.
If you’ve missed it, it’s mighty clever. With selected cars, such as BMW 5 Series, you can unlock the vehicle by touching your iPhone or Apple Watch on the car. You can use the same mechanism to start the engine, too. Oh, and you can share the digital car keys with others via iMessage, and easily cancel the key, too.
You can even start your car for up to five hours after the iPhone runs out of battery, which is pretty cool. Get in, start the car and then recharge your iPhone battery as you drive!
Oh, and the functionality also works with Apple Watch and you can set Express Mode so you don’t even need to take your iPhone out of your pocket or press a button on your Watch for the magic to happen.
All very well, except the range of cars in which you can use this tech seemed to have stalled worse than a learner practicing a hill start. That’s not quite fair, but it seemed that unless you had one of a small set of vehicles, you had no prospect of using it.
Now, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his weekly Power On newsletter, there have been hints in iOS 15 coding that that’s about to change.
Gurman says: “In line with code findings several months ago in iOS 15, I’m hearing that the next cars to get support for the feature will be models from Hyundai and its Genesis line. I’m told the functionality will roll out by the summer.”
It’s a clever system, meaning you no longer need to worry about leaving your car keys at home, as long as you’re carrying your iPhone or wearing your Watch. And it works with Power Reserve, that is, after your iPhone battery has run too low for you to use it, it still unlocks the car for up to five hours after.
There’s no official confirmation from Hyundai that this feature is coming to its Genesis cars, but if Gurman’s timing expectation is right, we may see it confirmed at WWDC.
