DoorDash has added Apple CarPlay syncing to its Dasher app, which delivery workers use to accept deliveries and get to your house. For workers with Apple’s infotainment system software in their cars, that means they can spare their phone batteries the cruel and unusual punishment of hours of daily use in the sometimes hot, harsh environment of their car’s dashboard.
Dasher VP of logistics Austin Haugen says CarPlay support is one of the “most highly requested features among the Dasher community,” which makes sense. Phones are great for mapping and directions in cars, but they can introduce big problems when you rely on them for your job.
For one thing, phone use in cars is heavily restricted in most states — Michigan recently passed a law forbidding drivers from holding a phone at all, even if they aren’t using it. The laws exist for very good reasons, but if a driver’s dash mount fails or it’s too hot to use the mount, they may turn to the more dangerous solution of holding it or putting it down out of the line of sight.
Besides that, all you need is a hot day and crappy AC, and your phone will just give up as it overheats. And if your charging cable disappears or breaks, your only option may be an unreliable gas station cable.
CarPlay doesn’t fix all of those problems; wireless CarPlay still has some connectivity issues and occasional unintuitive charging support (or lack thereof for some models), and the wired version, well, still needs a wire. But I doubt delivery workers will look sideways at it.
