I’ve been using Apple CarPlay wirelessly for several years now. For the most part, the system has generally worked as expected, allowing me to beam the contents of my iPhone directly onto my vehicle’s infotainment display with ease. However, I can recall occasional times in which my CarPlay connection has experienced issues, ranging from minor lags and stutters to cutting out entirely.

For reasons I can’t explain, my CarPlay connectivity issues have become more frequent in recent months. I’ve noticed it taking longer for my iPhone to pair with my car on average, and my music and podcasts will skip a beat more often than they did in the past. These issues are all minor on their own, but they compound and create a friction-filled experience when put together.

With this in mind, I recently decided to try out wired CarPlay for the very first time. With the help of a simple USB-C to USB-C cable, I tethered my iPhone to my car and hoped for the best. I was expecting CarPlay’s wired incarnation to negate some of my connection woes, but what I didn’t expect was to prefer the corded experience to the degree that I find myself doing.

Wired CarPlay is just plain better

A more stable connection, better efficiency, and more

Wired Apple CarPlay has the immediate benefit of being a truly frictionless experience. Sure, you have to manually plug your phone into your car to get started with it, but once that’s out of the way, there’s no dealing with the connectivity issues that sometimes plague CarPlay in its wireless form.

Wire-based CarPlay creates a truly stable connection between iPhone and vehicle, resulting in virtually no stutters, lags, dropped calls, or other discrepancies. This corded connection is also more efficient on the whole when compared to wireless, which means less heat production, less wasted energy, and less battery drain.

Speaking of battery drain, a wired CarPlay connection has the added benefit of topping up your iPhone’s power pack during use, which is a very nice addition indeed. Wireless CarPlay, by contrast, can zap your juice rather quickly, meaning you’ll have to rely on a cord or wireless charging pad to stay connected anyway.

One other under-appreciated perk of wired CarPlay has to do with audio quality: a cable ensures lossless, uncompressed audio with zero latency, which can’t be said about wireless CarPlay’s Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth-based solution. For most folks, the sound fidelity difference is negligible, but it’s still worth noting nonetheless.

In short, I’m officially a wired Apple CarPlay convert, and there’s simply no going back for me. I do miss the convenience of not having to plug my phone into my vehicle, but the upsides of a more stable connection, built-in iPhone recharging, and crystal-clear audio are simply too hard to resist. I dread the days when it’d take five whole minutes for my iPhone to recognize that it’s in a car, and I’m very glad that they’re now in the past.