Many iPhone users have likely experienced a surprisingly common annoyance: you step into your car, start the engine, and almost instantly, the music or podcast you were privately enjoying through your AirPods begins playing aloud through the car’s speakers instead. What feels like a small inconvenience can quickly become a disruption, breaking the flow of your listening experience or drawing unwanted attention to what had been a personal moment. Fortunately, you are far from alone in facing this situation, and Apple has finally acknowledged this behavior by offering a thoughtful and elegantly simple remedy within its latest iOS 26 update. As noted by MacRumors, the solution not only addresses this specific frustration but is designed to operate seamlessly across all wireless headphones paired with your iPhone, not just the company’s own AirPods, providing an even broader level of convenience.
To enable this improvement, you’ll need to open your iPhone’s Settings application and proceed through a short but deliberate sequence of menu selections. Begin by tapping on the ‘General’ category, then continue into the subsection labeled ‘AirPlay & Continuity.’ Within this area, Apple has introduced a new toggle titled ‘Keep Audio with Headphones.’ Activating this option instructs your iPhone to maintain its audio output through the connected wireless headphones—even if it detects and automatically links with nearby Bluetooth-enabled devices such as car stereos or speakers that support CarPlay. Essentially, this new capability gives you explicit control over where your sound plays, ensuring that your music, podcasts, or audiobooks remain private until you intentionally decide otherwise.
However, this setting does not permanently prohibit the use of your car’s audio system. Apple has designed the feature with flexibility in mind. Even with ‘Keep Audio with Headphones’ enabled, you can still redirect playback to your vehicle’s stereo whenever you wish, either by accessing the Control Center on your iPhone or by using the familiar interface within CarPlay itself. The transition between outputs remains effortless and reversible. Crucially, enabling this option does not limit access to CarPlay’s other functionalities—you can continue utilizing navigation, messaging, or app integration features while your phone’s audio stays routed through your personal headphones. In effect, Apple’s update refines the user experience by marrying autonomy with convenience, giving listeners uninterrupted control over their audio environment while maintaining the full convenience of CarPlay’s broader ecosystem.
Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/news/796554/iphone-ios-26-keep-airpods-wireless-headphones-connected-carplay
