CarPlay Widget
Hereish works on your car’s display through CarPlay. One of the most natural places to wonder “what town am I in?” is behind the wheel, so this is a primary use case for the app.
Requirements
Section titled “Requirements”- iPhone running iOS 26 or later
- A CarPlay-compatible vehicle or head unit
No extra setup is needed on the Hereish side. Once you’re running iOS 26, Hereish automatically appears as an available widget in your CarPlay settings.
To add it to your CarPlay dashboard:
- Connect your iPhone to CarPlay.
- Open CarPlay Settings on your car’s display.
- Find Hereish in the available widget list.
- Add it to your dashboard.
The exact steps for accessing CarPlay widget settings vary by vehicle manufacturer — check your car’s manual if the settings aren’t immediately obvious.
What It Shows
Section titled “What It Shows”The CarPlay widget displays the Hereish icon alongside your current town name and state abbreviation. The layout mirrors the iPhone home screen widget, adapted for the car display.
The widget is designed for legibility in variable lighting conditions — direct sunlight, overcast days, tunnel darkness, night driving. It uses system fonts and colors to ensure readability across all CarPlay display types.
How It Refreshes
Section titled “How It Refreshes”The CarPlay widget refreshes on-demand per the iOS 26 widget specification. It does not continuously poll for location in the background. When iOS refreshes the widget, it reads the latest cached location from the shared storage — which, with “Always” permission, is kept current by Significant Location Change monitoring.
For the best experience, make sure Hereish has “Always” location permission. See Download & Permissions for details.
iOS 26 Beta Notice
Section titled “iOS 26 Beta Notice”CarPlay widget support requires iOS 26, which is currently in beta. This feature will be available to all users when iOS 26 launches publicly. If you’re running the iOS 26 beta, the CarPlay widget should already be available.
- “Always” permission matters here more than anywhere. When you’re driving, you’re moving through towns quickly. Significant Location Change monitoring keeps the cache fresh so the widget has current data on each refresh.
- The widget is glance-only. CarPlay widgets are not interactive while driving — you can’t tap to refresh or open the app. The location updates automatically.
- No special entitlement required. Unlike CarPlay navigation or audio apps, CarPlay widgets don’t require Apple approval or a CarPlay app entitlement. Hereish’s standard WidgetKit widgets are automatically eligible for CarPlay on iOS 26.