Our new car has wired CarPlay. That may sound like a crime against humanity in 2024 but I actually prefer it over wireless (mostly). A cable means it is absolutely rock solid and straightforward to switch between devices.

However I have a USB-C iPhone and my wife has a absolute garbage antiquated Lighting iPhone (jk it’s a one-year-old iPhone 14). This posed an issue where we’d need to swap cables when we switched drivers in the car. I also didn’t like the idea of wearing out the car’s built in USB plug switching cables frequently. Is that an irrational thing to worry about? Yes.

So the solution we landed on is keeping a USB-C cable always plugged into the car for my phone. (I drive most often, especially now that we have a baby my wife likes to sit in the back now) and when she needs to plug in we attach this tiny female USB-C to male Lightning dingus to the end of the USB-C cable and voilà her phone is charging and connected to CarPlay. I was worried this cable would only handle charging bht it definitely works for tranferring the data required for CarPlay. This solution also keeps the console less cluttered — we don’t need two 3 foot cables strewn about getting tangled and driving me nuts.

I’m probably going to buy another to charge my keyboard at my desk. I like having an open USB-C cable at all times for charging things and I still have a few Lightning accessories. Slowly yet surely we are eradicating Lightning from our home. It’s a battle I’m ready to endure for as long as it shall take.