They're handy travel companions when you're behind the wheel, but how quickly will Apple CarPlay and Android Auto chew through your mobile data?
05:5912 May 2023
Smartphones can help you find your way from A to B, and keep you entertained along the way, but of course you're not allowed to hold your phone while driving. Rather than just sit your phone in a hands-free cradle, you might be lucky enough to have a car entertainment system which supports Apple CarPlay and/or Android Auto.
With your smartphone connected to your car, you can control everything from the big screen in the dashboard. This puts most of your favourite apps at your fingertips, but don't forget that your phone is still playing the middleman to connect your car to the internet. If you're not careful, you can chew through your phone's mobile data allowance.
Using an app via Apple CarPlay or Android Auto uses the same amount of mobile data as if you were using the app directly on your smartphone. That means the biggest data hog when driving is probably streaming music or podcasts.
How much data you use when listening to music depends on your cellular streaming quality settings. Remember, "cellular" means when your phone is connected to the 4G/5G mobile phone network, as opposed to when it's connected to Wi-Fi.
These settings vary slightly between music apps, but let's use Spotify as an example. Under Settings / Audio Quality you'll see different options for Wi-Fi, Cellular and Download. Streaming cellular music on Low only uses about 10 MB per hour, but this jumps to 43, 72 and 144 MB per hour as you move up to Normal, High and Very High.
The best way to reduce your mobile data usage is to save music and podcasts onto your phone when you're on Wi-Fi, so you don't need to stream them while you're driving. And watch out for autoplay features, which might start streaming once you reach the end of a downloaded album or playlist.
Satellite navigation
Most sat-nav apps also use mobile data when running via Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, but there are ways to keep this in check.
As you drive, your sat-nav app downloads more and more of the map. The amount of data this uses depends on where you're driving: 5 MB per hour is a good rule of thumb for Google Maps and Apple Maps, but it can be much higher.
Thankfully, some sat-nav apps like Google Maps (but not Apple Maps) let you save sections of the map to your phone. Along with reducing your mobile data usage, this is also helpful if you're driving through areas with poor coverage.
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Technology Journalist
Adam Turner is an award-winning Australian technology journalist, podcaster and gadget guru who had been writing about tech for more than 20 years. A long-time columnist for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Adam focuses on high-tech ways to pimp your ride.
