Spotify's first hardware device, the "Car Thing," is now available to purchase in the United States for $89.99.
Announced in April last year, the Car Thing is an in-car dash-mounted music and podcast player designed to provide a more seamless and personalized listening experience, especially in the large number of cars that do not support modern in-car infotainment systems or Apple CarPlay.
The Car Thing is aimed at Spotify Premium subscribers with these needs and features a touchscreen, a knob for navigation, voice control features, and four user-configurable buttons for fast access to areas such as favorite music, podcasts, or playlists.
The user interface takes cues from the Spotify mobile app so that it is familiar to users, and there is the choice of touch controls, "Hey Spotify" voice commands, or physical navigation via the knob. The Car Thing works over Bluetooth, or via an AUX or USB cable, and it comes with three different dash and vent mounts to ensure that it fits to the dashboard securely, as well as a car charger and a USB-C cable.
The Car Thing is compatible with iOS and Android devices, and connects to a user's smartphone for data and linking to the Spotify app. The Car Thing was initially only available to selected users who requested an invite during the device's testing period, but now the device is now publicly available in the United States for $89.99 including shipping.
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
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A new report from The Information today reveals much of the internal turmoil behind Apple Intelligence's revamped version of Siri.
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Thursday April 10, 2025 4:19 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
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On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we catch up on the latest iOS 19 and watchOS 12 rumors, upcoming devices, and more.
Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos
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Apple is working on a new version of the Vision Pro with two key advantages over the current model, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
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I couldn't wait to get rid of this thing when I used to have Sirius for the car. This connects to the phone for data anyway, why not just use the phone instead?
I saw a post where someone used this on their desk beneath their monitor a while back. Knowing how cluttered a digital workspace can get and how people often prefer to add physical hardware to simplify this (think of multiple monitors), it actually made a lot of sense. I’ll edit in the post if I can find it.
Honestly wouldn't mind something similar to this but to enable CarPlay functionality. My vehicle is just shy of the model year where CarPlay became a standard option, and the after market devices are just ludicrously expensive for what is, essentially, a vanity.