Apple Music app appeared on the Tesla built-in infotainment system on exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
Currently, the infotainment ecosystem on Tesla vehicles supports select music streaming services like Spotify, TIDAL, TuneIn, and Slacker. And audio streaming services like Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon Music, and Youtube Music are not natively supported but can be used via workarounds.
In addition to not supporting Apple Music, Tesla vehicles also do not support Apple AirPlay, Carplay and CarKey services. On a podcast, Spike’s Car Radio with Spike Feresten, Tesla’s Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen talked down Apple products and said that “there’s nothing to look forward to” when it comes to Apple products, and they are just “slight refinements on the same thing”. It appears that mindset might be changing.
Apple Music icon on the Tesla Model S infotainment system on exhibit
The owner of ABetterTheater.com, @Aaron Cash posted pictures of the Apple Music icon on the infotainment system of a Tesla Model S Long Range on Twitter.
As seen in the images, the Apple Music icon was part of the main interface and features a QR code that took users to the activate.apple.com link.
However, it must be noted that the Tesla models on exhibition at the museum as used as demonstration vehicles for visitors to sit in the vehicle and check out its features. The vehicles run modified firmware of Tesla’s operating system instead of the public version.
Therefore, it is can not be said with certainty if Apple Music support will be coming to Tesla.
Previously, Tesla’s founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted that his audio engineers were open to taking suggestions to offer Apple AirPlay into consideration to further improve the audio quality in electric vehicles (EVs). Musk’s response was prompted by iOS users’ numerous requests for AirPlay support on Tesla.
