Side by side
| CarPlay | Apple Watch | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the sound comes from | The car, from the iPhone | Never the watch: it stays on the iPhone |
| Play, pause, next and previous page | Yes | Yes |
| Choose a book | Yes, from the whole library | No |
| Chapters, voice, speed, bookmark | Yes | No |
| Sleep timer | No | No |
| Import a book, download a voice | No | No |
What to expect in the car
VocaRead does not wait for you. As soon as the iPhone connects, the app opens on its playing screen and starts reading: the book you had paused, otherwise the one you started most recently, otherwise the first in your library. Pause it from the screen or the steering wheel if you would rather have silence for the first few minutes.
Five buttons sit on the playing screen. The library lists every book with its author and progress, and a tap starts that book. Chapters appears only when the book has them. Language opens the downloaded voices language by language. Speed offers seven settings from 0.5x to 2x; a book with its own speed keeps the change to itself, and otherwise it applies everywhere. The last button bookmarks or unbookmarks the current page, and you will find the bookmark on your iPhone later.
The forward and back controls move one page, on screen and on the steering wheel. When the connection drops, reading pauses and waits for you rather than moving to the iPhone speaker.
A long drive is the worst moment to discover that a voice is missing. If none is downloaded for a book's language, the screen says so and there is nothing more you can do from the dashboard.
What the watch shows
The app needs watchOS 10 or later and shows the cover, title, author, elapsed and total time, with three buttons: previous page, play or pause, next page. That is the whole interface. There is no book list, no setting and no speaker output, by design.
When no book is open, it asks you to open VocaRead on your iPhone. If the phone cannot be reached at that moment, your command is queued rather than lost, and the pressed button dims for up to three seconds while it waits for an answer.
For the watch face, the Now Reading complication comes in four shapes. The circular one shows only whether reading is playing or paused. The corner, inline and rectangular ones add the book title.
Using both at once
This is the one combination that can surprise you. Watch commands act on the book open in the player on your iPhone. If reading was started from CarPlay and no book is open in that player, the watch buttons have no effect, and you will need the dashboard or the steering wheel.