We picked up the new car last week (2019 Subaru Forester) and thought I would report back on my question. For those who don’t know, Apple Carplay is a system for navigating supported iPhone apps via the car dashboard monitor and controls. It is meant to provide a way to take advantage of mobile apps without taking your eyes too far off the road. The Subaru has its own native control panel and apps for playing music and other functions, but when an iPhone is plugged in with CarPlay enabled, it takes over and replaces it with the phone apps. Most of the processing is done on the phone and the feedback is mirrored to the dashboard monitor. CarPlay enabled app icons appear on the touch screen dashboard monitor and can be run without having to pick up the phone.
JRemote does not have specific CarPlay support, so its app icon does not appear on the dashboard screen. However, it can be run from the phone itself and once running it has playback controls that appear on the dashboard monitor. Additionally it can be controlled by the buttons on the steering wheel. As long as you remember to start playing something before you start driving, it’s very functional.
I would like to see a better implementation for CarPlay support. I’ll create a new thread for that, but I will say that, at a minimum, it would be nice to be able to start JRemote from the car dashboard screen instead of fumbling with the phone.