Alright, here’s a quick CarPlay summary.
I don’t live in the SF Bay Area, so I do NOT have any of the 3D features during navigation. There ARE a few differences I was able to notice though. (Sorry, didn’t take screenshots, so I’ll explain the best I can).
1. Navigation shows less (but I’m not saying this in a bad way. For this particular point, it is not impacting anything in a negative way). The 3D building models, at least on my drive to and from work today, did not show on straightaways (they did on iOS 14). They show up as the screen zooms in, but I wouldn’t call it consistent. The outlines showed at different zoom levels usually when a turn was coming up. I actually think there may be a bug involved here because this triggered at different zoom levels.
2. The way the map actually moves while following your location marker seems different. Smoother, in a way. It also seems to move more.
3. Going back to point 1 regarding navigating showing less…on straightaways, it seemed like I couldn’t see as far ahead, but stop lights/signs seemed to pop up earlier than they did on iOS 14. I was almost always seeing the next 2 lights or signs. The third pops up VERY early. And I mean so early that you can’t really determine how soon it comes after the second one. It could be at the intersection that follows…or it could be more than a mile after.
4. The new ”night” map. I LOVE it! Whether looking at the map on iOS, or looking at it during navigation, the new night map solves my biggest complaint about Maps in dark mode. It is no longer “too dark”. It looks great! It’s much easier to see the different colors in dark mode now. Same goes for light mode. Everything is richer (for lack of a better word). Everything, to me, is more distinguishable.
5. Can’t speak on how incident reports are displayed because I did not come across any on my way too or from work. My work commutes occur during ”quiet” traffic hours. Like basically all of my work commutes are uneventful and enjoy very light traffic.
So far, I can not speak on how traffic is displayed because at the times I was driving today, traffic was very light