GM Signs Deal to Put the Apple Music App in its New Vehicles

General Motors customers can call a halt to the revolt.

GM announced this week that it’s reached a pact with Apple Inc. to bring the Apple Music app back to certain Chevrolet and Cadillac models, including Corvette, starting Monday through an over-the-air update.

The move returns a major Apple feature that GM customers lost when the company began phasing out Apple CarPlay in 2023 – a decision that sparked backlash and led some buyers to threaten a boycott of GM. Owners of 2024 and older models still have CarPlay.

Apple Music will first reappear in Chevrolet’s Corvette, Tahoe, and Suburban gas-powered vehicles and Equinox, Blazer, and Silverado EVs, as well as Cadillac’s Vistiq, Escalade IQ, and CT5. Buick and GMC will eventually follow suit.

GM says the service will stream through GM’s OnStar Basics system at no extra cost for eight years on 2025+ models in the U.S. and Canada.

“I recognize that’s a hot button topic,” Sterling Anderson, GM’s chief product officer, admitted in an interview with The Detroit News. “I liked it for a very long time in vehicles that had inferior access to the applications and services that I cared about. That’s no longer true in the vehicles that we’ve removed it from.”

The GM agreement follows similar deals reached between Apple and Mercedes-Benz, Tesla and Rivian.

Originally, GM had said it was phasing out CarPlay and moving to its own system that integrates some vehicle controls in the automaker’s own software, allowing for more seamless control of vehicle features without causing drivers to toggle between the vehicle’s menu and a CarPlay or Android Auto menu. Apparently, the public outcry was loud enough for the company to reconsider that decision, starting next week.

Source:

The Detroit News