Mine always skips to the next or previous track. It has never acted like a scrubbing control in my experience. Maybe a new "feature" in 2025 models?

 

This is controlled on your iPhone, on an app specific basis. When I'm listening to music, that switch goes to next or previous track. When I'm listening to podcasts, it skips ahead 30 s or back 15 s.

 

Actually, in looking for the controls that make these different, I found them in the settings for the Apple Podcasts app. Do you use Apple Music via CarPlay, or some other app? It seems the same signal gets sent from the car to whichever app is playing audio, and how the app interprets it is controlled by the app.

 

Thank you for this recommendation. I am using the Apple Music app from CarPlay. Apple Music does not have any "external controls" setting, however as you mentioned the Podcasts app does. Mine was set to "Forward/Back", which when using the steering wheel controls resulted in skipping ahead or back a number of seconds.

I changed the "external controls" setting in the Podcasts app to "Next/Previous" and now the steering wheel control works in Apple Music as expected (Next/Previous track).

 

I'm glad that worked for you, but I'm a bit confused why. I use Apple's Music and Podcasts apps, and I get different behaviour from them, which I like. In Podcasts, it's handy to skip forward a bit over ads, but in Music, I want to go to the next song. I wouldn't want the setting from either to affect the other.

 

I don't understand this either as I can't find similar settings that just apply to Apple Music.

 

You could always just use Siri and simply say “next track” or “fast forward / rewind n-seconds.”

 

Its the control next to the volume for me