Karaooookkkee! not so OK in a car it seems?
Why Apple and Spotify will not allow you very soon to get your singing on in the car
Apple Music and Spotify offer a great feature where you can karaoke on millions of songs. Somehow it doesn’t get either used that much or isn’t always known that it is actually a almost flawless feature to use.
In part, which I can understand is, because you are looking for ‘power users’ that at the right time, would try to turn a whole crowd to getting into karaoke, only left to find them with not enough (hardware) support to actually convince everybody.
So why not try it where everything is already available:
in a car
with a crowd
with the music
in proximity
with everybody open for a new experience
According to our Frainds, in this case GPT 5.1, probably because of the following reasons… when driving:
Driver attention (distraction)
Anything that encourages singing, moving lyrics and a party vibe in the car can count as a “distracting feature” in Apple’s eyes.
CarPlay is very strict: apps may only show/control things that distract the driver as little as possible (big buttons, limited text, no unnecessary animations).
A karaoke mode with scrolling lyrics, maybe even animations, sits exactly in the risk zone of “driver distraction”.
Legal and insurance risksIf Apple explicitly offers a karaoke feature in the car and an accident happens, lawyers could argue that Apple enabled a dangerous feature.
By blocking those kinds of functions in CarPlay, Apple can say: “We stick to essential media controls, not party features.” That reduces their liability.
Rules for CarPlay apps
Apple uses strict guidelines for what apps may show or do in CarPlay (similar to “no video while driving”).
In terms of behavior, karaoke is more comparable to a video/visual entertainment feature than just playing audio.
So: on your iPhone/iPad = okay, but in CarPlay = nope.
Licenses for lyrics & context of use
The license for lyrics and “Sing” is mainly intended for personal use on phone, tablet, TV (home environment).
In-car use might fall under different licensing rules (e.g., public performance, different rightsholders, etc.). Apple will be conservative about that.
But even when not driving, which surprised me more, could be because of the following:
Safety & liability
The CarPlay guidelines are extremely strict around distraction: big buttons, little text, no unnecessary animations. Karaoke lyrics + scrolling text = exactly what they try to avoid.
Even if you’re parked now, the car can start moving again at any moment. Apple doesn’t want a feature that encourages you to look at the screen and fiddle around with karaoke settings.
Consistency: no “sometimes yes, sometimes no” features
Apple tries to keep CarPlay very predictable: music, navigation, calls, messages.
A mode that only works when the car is really at a standstill would create lots of edge cases:
Stop-and-go traffic: moving slowly vs. fully stopped → when is it allowed?
Unreliable speed data from certain cars.
So they’d rather choose: either always allowed, or just don’t do it.
Spotify: double constraints
Spotify has to comply with Apple’s CarPlay rules and do its own risk assessment.
In their own community, “lyrics in CarPlay” is explicitly tied to distraction & liability: “we don’t want to create driving karaoke”.
Priorities & licenses
Karaoke/lyrics licenses are not exactly the same as “just streaming audio”.
Building a full karaoke UI for CarPlay, testing it across thousands of car models, legal checks… for a feature that’s more “nice to have” will rank lower on the roadmap than, for example, better voice control, recommendations, or audio quality.
So yeah, now you know, a perfectly great feature of your already heavily used apps, is probably not coming to your in-car entertainment soon!