Apple CarPlay is not the only game in town for connected cars. I recently had a chance to test the 2026 Buick Enclave Avenir and found Amazon Music to be a capable replacement.
If you don’t know, GM has started to move away from CarPlay on some makes and models. The only thing I really miss is texting, but just about every other feature that CarPlay offers can be replicated including music playback. Few of us store local music anymore and haven’t done that in years; we are living in a streaming world. So whether I play Bear’s Den on Tidal through CarPlay or on Amazon Music makes no difference and, in a vehicle like the 2026 Buick Enclave Avenir, you likely won’t be able to tell the difference even though Tidal supports high-res audio.
I would say Amazon Music fits my connected home lifestyle, though. I have an Alexa speaker in my kitchen, the living room, and in my basement den — all from various years.
In the car, the one thing that I discovered liking the most had to do with podcasts. When you first pull up the app in the dashboard, you can access your library (which is stored in the cloud) or select podcasts and swipe through the available options.
I love podcast discovery because there are so many shows available and it’s impossible to keep track of them all. I found an NPR podcast called News Now that gave me a daily digest. I also found podcasts from The New York Times and Fox News.
The 30-inch diagonal screen is bright and clear, and all of my swipes and gestures registered perfect;ly. That’s more helpful than you might imagine since not registering a swipe or finger press while driving can feel distracting and even dangerous. You want the display to respond quickly and do what you want at a glance so you can focus on the road.
Music playback was also exceptional in the 2026 Buick Enclave Avenir and I was able to quickly find any songs I wanted to play without a lot of hunting and pecking involved.
Voice control reminded me of being at home. I have told this story before, but I remember passengers slipping into a press car in the past and asking Alexa to play music, thinking that should work. Of course, now it does, which is a bit ironic.
I asked Alexa to play an album by The National and had no problems with the bot understanding me and even picking a recent album without a lot of extra interactions that can happen sometimes with voicebots.
I also enjoyed chatting with Alexa to find some artists I like. “Who are some other artists similar to The National” actually works, with eyes firmly on the road ahead.
Overall, I didn’t miss CarPlay during my Buick Enclave Avenir test and felt the hands-free controls with Alexa made it easier to focus on driving and not trying to figure out what to play next.