Radio on Android Auto and CarPlay: What Works, and What a Web Player Can't Do

Published 18 September 2026

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Android Auto and Apple CarPlay put your phone's apps on the car's screen, with big buttons you can use without looking. For live radio that raises a simple question — which station players actually show up there — and the answer is narrower than most people expect.

Only approved apps appear on the car screen

Neither system shows arbitrary apps. Google and Apple only let certain categories onto the dashboard, and audio apps have to be built with their car frameworks to appear. A website — any website, 72FM included — cannot be one of them. So there are really three ways to get radio through a car running Android Auto or CarPlay.

1. A radio app built for the car

The established radio apps support both systems, with station lists and favourites on the dashboard:

• TuneIn and iHeartRadio are the best known, with large catalogues and voice control through Siri or Google Assistant.
• Many broadcasters' own apps work in the car as well, and some countries have national aggregator apps.

This is the right answer if you want to pick stations on the dashboard while driving. The trade-offs are the usual ones for free radio apps — adverts, accounts, and catalogues that miss small and international stations; best radio apps compares them honestly.

2. Your phone's browser, set up before you drive

72FM runs in the phone's browser, and when the phone is connected to CarPlay or Android Auto its audio usually plays through the car's speakers like any other sound from the phone. What you do not get is a player on the car's screen: you choose the station on the phone.

Do that before you set off — open 72FM, start the station, then put the phone down. Most cars' steering-wheel volume controls still work. Never reach for the phone while moving; if you want to change station on the road, that is what option 1 is for.

3. Plain Bluetooth or the aux socket

If your car has Bluetooth audio but no CarPlay or Android Auto, or you prefer not to use them, pairing the phone over Bluetooth plays any station in the directory through the car. Radio in the car covers Bluetooth, aux cables and FM transmitters for older cars.

Upgrading the car

Two pieces of hardware change what is possible:

• A wireless adapter. If your car only supports CarPlay or Android Auto over a USB cable, a wireless CarPlay / Android Auto adapter plugs into the car's USB port and connects to the phone over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so the phone can stay in your pocket.
• A new head unit. An older car with no CarPlay or Android Auto at all can take an aftermarket CarPlay and Android Auto car stereo, in single-DIN or double-DIN sizes. Check the fit for your model and budget for fitting.

A dashboard phone mount is the cheap improvement for everything in option 2: the phone is visible, charged and out of your hand.

Data on the road

An hour of radio at 128kbps is about 58MB; talk stations use half that. A commute's worth of listening costs little, while a long drive with a high-bitrate station is worth a glance at your data plan. How much data internet radio uses has the numbers, and fixing radio buffering helps when a weak signal keeps interrupting the stream.

The short version

• To change stations on the dashboard while driving: use a car-ready radio app such as TuneIn or iHeartRadio.
• To hear a station no app carries: start it in 72FM on the phone before you drive, and let CarPlay, Android Auto or Bluetooth carry the sound.
• To stop plugging in: a wireless adapter. To add CarPlay to an old car: a new head unit.