Stringers
GitHub open-source project · written 11-6
shihabal3amri/DiPlay · shihabal3amri

The same day BYD announced CarPlay, an Omani programmer turned it into a free APK: 43 days, 13k stars, 880k downloads

What it is A free, open-source APK that runs on Android head units, letting BYD and other older cars use wired or wireless Apple CarPlay without buying an adapter box.

Why it took off It turned CarPlay certification, which previously required a box or chip, into pure software. It arrived just as BYD announced CarPlay with no timeline for older cars, and in mid-October step-by-step tutorials on Douyin and Bilibili pushed it from BYD owners to every iPhone user with an Android head unit.

CHow you could follow this Don't build another CarPlay receiver. Copy the formula: find features a big company has just announced but has pushed back for existing users, turn anything that needs hardware or flashing into installing one APK, start with a single brand, add a Chinese README with a big download button, and actively approach short-video tutorial creators.

Grade C: the approach is worth learning, but the key extracted Carlinkit identity has already been used and could be blocked by Apple at any time. GitHub already has 731 related repos, and the brand-port niches are taken. Copying it directly won't earn many stars; what's worth borrowing is the timing window and the methods for lowering the barrier. It's circulating in niche circles
Data (updated daily) · Repo created 2026-09-24 · 13,431 stars · 7 days +472
GitHub · stars
05k10k15k09-2910-1610-2410-3111-0813k
Data 2026-09-29 → 2026-11-08 (41 days, 32 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

In 2026 Sep 24, BYD announced CarPlay, but only for the Denza Z9S, which had launched the day before, with other models to follow via OTA, and no list or timeline. The same day, Omani developer Shihab created a GitHub repo called DiPlay: an APK installed on the car's head unit that lets BYD's older Android head units use CarPlay directly, without a box. By Nov 6, it had 13,330 stars and its installer had been downloaded 887k times. This piece covers why it took off, who pushed it into wider circulation, and what you can learn from it, and what you can't, if you want to build an open-source project that earns stars the same way.

"When does my car get its turn?"

Under BYD's official announcement, the most common question was the same one. Owners asked directly, "Does my older 24 Song get a chance?" and "Will the Han get it? Will the Seal 08 be supported?" No one answered (compiled by 什么值得买 10-02). A meme that had circulated in owner circles for years was "BYD supports CarPlay in Europe but not in China." This announcement put that issue back in front of several million existing owners, and essentially told them: wait a bit longer.

Before this, iPhone users with older Android head units had two ways to use CarPlay: spend two or three hundred yuan on a Carlinkit-style adapter box, or solder an MFi-certified chip into the head unit. DiPlay offered a third option: put an APK on a USB drive, install it on the head unit, connect your phone to the head unit's hotspot, and you're done.

Tencent News's 10-21 long-form test put it this way: "It's just an app. Install it and you're done. You don't even have to open ADB… The developer even made a website, and the download button is right in your face."

How it skips the box

CarPlay requires the head unit side to have an Apple-certified "accessory identity," which previously lived in a box or chip. DiPlay extracts the identity from Carlinkit's publicly available firmware and bundles it directly into the APK. The README is candid about this:

This is not an Apple-certified product. The APK contains an experimental accessory identity recovered from public Carlinkit firmware… The embedded private key can be extracted. Whether future iOS updates will continue to accept it, and whether it is suitable for wide distribution, are unresolved questions.

That step is the whole difference. DiPlay's upstream project xcertplay (created Sep 12) had the protocol working, but still required an onboard MFi chip or an external CH341 adapter board, and had 1,578 stars to date. DiPlay replaces the chip with software and has about 8 times as many stars.

The rest is details for BYD owners: the interface copies DiAuto, which BYD owners already know (the author's wireless Android Auto project released two days earlier), and it supports navigation arrows and street names on BYD's HUD, the dashboard map, and steering-wheel buttons, "native integration" that adapter boxes can't match. The README is in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and the app has 11 languages (Korean and Turkish were added later).

How the stars grew

TimelineWhat happenedStars (daily GitHub snapshots)
09-24BYD announcement; repo created; Russian- and English-language BYD modding forum byd.forum had posts the same day—
Around 09-29Elseboard, iThinkDiff, and other English tech sites covered it09-29 is 861
10-01 to 10-17"Step-by-step tutorials" clustered on Douyin, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu10-09 to 7,282,10-10 single-day +855
10-21Tencent News long-form test10-17 is 11,094
NovemberStill growing, but slower11-06 is 13,330, +556 over the last 7 days, +715 over the prior 7 days

The real traffic didn't come from GitHub, Hacker News or X (none of them even charted). It came from Chinese short video. Search "DiPlay carplay" on Douyin (11-06), and the hottest clips cluster in the middle-to-late October window: a post by "老张是大佬"10-11 with 73k likes and 16k shares; a "10x productivity" clip10-04 with 20k likes; and "小城小和"10-08 testing it in a Toyota Camry with 12k likes. That window lines up perfectly with the ten days when the stars spiked. In the words of Tencent News: "Every DiPlay video on the video platforms has thousands of likes." Some creators even teach people who can't work GitHub to "download it through Doubao."

Then it spilled out of BYD. The author's README says it only supports BYD and "won't fix" other brands, but owners installed it on Geely, Changan, Leapmotor, MG4, Nissan, 8 Camry, even spare Android tablets. The target audience went from "older BYD owners in China" to "anyone with an old Android head unit or an iPhone."

There's another number that's easy to miss: 887k Release downloads, which is 66x its star count. People who come to watch click star; people who actually install it only download and don't star. This is something people really use every day (the downloads include duplicates and mirror re-uploads, so the real install count can't be estimated).

It's not good to use, but that's actually what's helping it

Tencent News tested the app on a colleague's two BYD cars. 21 Song Plus models worked on the first try, but 23 Yuan Plus models failed after 4 APK versions, stuck at the activation step. In a DiPlay help group, the admin said flatly: "This car model can't be adapted, no way around it." Out of four more owners, three succeeded and the Destroyer 05 failed. Even the ones that worked had problems: BYD's voice assistant "Xiao Di" takes priority over Siri, navigation and music share one volume control, music occasionally "cuts in" while driving, and calls are hard to hear. Owner feedback collected by Stringers also mentions: "Switching to the reverse camera and back requires reconnecting."

So many variables that the discussion never stops: which car model, which firmware, which iOS version works, and every combination spawns a new video, a new post. The author shipped 19 versions in one month, at peak nearly one a day, each with detailed release notes and "verified on which car", plus a one-click diagnostic report export. Instability plus a high release cadence means there's always something new to talk about.

Who's competing with it, and who's racing alongside it

WhoWhat it isScale"Xiaocheng Xiaohe"
xcertplayOpen source, upstream of DiPlay1,578★
Hardware + closed-source APK¥200–300 in China, $180–320 overseas
Automaker featuresNew car + staggered OTA, and 11-03 only reaches the Yangwang U8
3,221★ / 1,076★
250–313★
539★Same person, same users, but DiPlay's stars are only 4% of that: the hot thing is the "iPhone + CarPlay" need, not the author

Plenty of copycats already. Search "diplay" on GitHub and you get 731 repos: the Chinese-localized, enhanced fork DiPlay-CN (873★), AllPlay rewritten in C++, CarLink combining CarPlay and Android Auto, and ports for Geely (113★), Leapmotor, Lynk & Co, MG4, Nissan, and 2017 Song models. There are mirror sites like diplay.org and diplay.cc, and some of them maintain a car-model compatibility database. On Douyin, plenty of tutorial accounts put an access code in their bio and use the DiPlay installer to drive traffic and sell other head-unit software packages.

If it were you

One-line take: Good sample, but DiPlay itself leaves no room to follow. What's worth learning is how it found the demand, not the product it built.

Who it's for: Android or embedded devs who know a hardware ecosystem (car head units, TV boxes, smartwatches, routers, game consoles), have real devices to test on, and are willing to find creators on Chinese short-video platforms to make tutorials for them.

Not for: anyone thinking of building a CarPlay receiver. The software-only route depends on a Carlinkit identity extracted from hardware. DiPlay already uses it, so you'd be the 732th. Apple can also block it in any iOS update, and it sits in a legal gray area. The brand-port niche is taken too. The Geely version tops out around 113★, which is the ceiling for this route (estimated).

How to do it: Copy the formula, not the product. The formula is three things stacked together:

How to get stars: GitHub won't send you traffic on its own. DiPlay has never hit trending or HN. Its path: the target users' forum (byd.forum) posts it the same day → a few English tech sites cover it → a Chinese short-video "step-by-step, from zero" tutorial pushes it into the mainstream. What you should do: put Chinese up front in the README, build a big-button download page on GitHub Pages so people who don't know GitHub can still install it, prep a 15-second vertical video of "plug in the USB drive, install, it works" and send it to the Douyin and Bilibili creators who already make tutorials in this category, and keep up a steady release cadence, noting on each version which device it was tested on.

When does the window close: For this kind of opportunity, the window lasts until the official version catches up. DiPlay's window closes when BYD finishes pushing its OTA update or Apple blocks that identity, whichever comes first. When you spot the next "official says it's coming later" moment, move in days, not weeks. DiPlay built its library the same day the announcement dropped.

How to tell you're misreading it: two weeks after you ship, people in the target forums are talking about your project, but no video creator will make a tutorial. That means "sideload an APK" is still too hard for this crowd, or they don't feel the pain that much. The official OTA update reached most users within a month of your release, so the window is already closed.

GitHub repo ↗

Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
Competitors
NameWhereLaunchedScaleHow it differs from this one
xcertplayOpen source2026-09-121,578★DiPlay's upstream needs an onboard MFi chip or an external CH341+MFi board; DiPlay has the identity extraction built in and runs on pure software, with the UI modeled after BYD's DiAuto
OtherYears agoTop hardware brands, sold on Amazon / AliExpress, priced at ¥200–300 to $180–320
Big-company features2026-09-24 announced (Denza Z9S), 11-03 Yangwang U8 OTA
open-headunitOpen source2025-103,221★for CarPlay 2 Air box firmware, still needs an MFi chip
LIVIOpen source2025-051,076★
WinPlay / MacPlay / playport / carcastOpen source2026-09 through October250–313★
Carup / CarMore / MiAutoAndroidNot verifiedNot verified
Where users come from
  • Verified Douyin / Bilibili / Xiaohongshu tutorial creators: On Douyin, "DiPlay carplay" has several hit videos from 10-01 to 10-17: 老张是大佬 with 73K likes, 豆瓣 with 25K likes, 10倍生产力 with 20K likes, ZHAOLONG with 17K likes. Plenty of accounts distribute the APK via private-community passcodes (TikHub 2026-11-06).
  • Verified Platform event: BYD officially announces CarPlay; existing cars have to wait for OTA: 09-24 BYD officially announced it. The Denza Z9S gets it first, other models get it via "later OTA." DiPlay put up a library the same day. Smzdm 10-02 ran a piece saying "the official OTA isn't scheduled yet, so existing owners are already using a free APK."
  • Verified Chinese tech media: Tencent News 10-21, Sina 10-11, SMZDM, Zhihu, CSDN, Weibo Aikeke-Aishenghuo
  • Verified BYD mod community and English tech sites: byd.forum 09-24 posted same day (with Telegram group); iThinkDiff 10-01, Elseboard 09-29, Poliety 10-11
  • Inferred the author's existing users (BYD localized apps, DiAuto): the author September first shipped the BYD-Android / BYD-iOS localizations and DiAuto, which share UI; whether those existing users were the first wave of stars is unverified
  • Inferred from HN / X big accounts: no hit in the hackernews or x-radar databases

Why DiPlay (shihabal3amri/DiPlay) is able to take off

Research date 2026-11-06. Data sources: GitHub API (same-day), our github repo_day database, hackernews database, x-radar, Jina/Exa web search, TikHub (Douyin / TikTok).

One line

DiPlay is an Android APK for car head units (Kotlin, GPL-3.0) that turns an Android head unit into an Apple CarPlay receiver. It works over both wired and wireless connections, with no adapter box to buy and no jailbreak needed. It is built mainly for BYD DiLink head units. The author is Shihab, a developer in Oman (company: Rihal). The repo was created 2026-09-24 and reached 13.4k stars and 1.7 thousand forks within 43 days. Release downloads total about 887k.

Data

  • Star curve (GitHub repo_day): 09-29 861 → 10-09 7,282 (averaging +642 per day over these 10 days) → single-day peak 10-10 +855, 10-11 +771 → 10-17 11,094 → 11-06 13,330. Last 7 days +556, the 7 days before that +715, slowly cooling off. Never made it onto trending (repo is under 60 days old).
  • Releases downloads (GitHub API 2026-11-06): 19 releases with 887,016 downloads in total. Top single release is v0.2.21 (released 10-17) with 132,853 downloads; v0.2.22 (10-28) got 89,287. From 09-25 to 10-28 they shipped 19 versions, almost one a day at peak. Downloads far outpace stars, which means real car owners are installing it, not just window-shopping.
  • Issues 355, watchers 51 (GitHub API).
  • The author's other repos: DiAuto (wireless Android Auto receiver, also for BYD head units, 539★, built 09-22), BYD-Android / BYD-iOS localization (September), and a static-recompilation port of an Xbox game (TTT2 253★). The account was registered 2018 years ago with no high-star repos before this; DiPlay came out of an obscure indie dev.

Why it took off

  1. Demand had been piling up for a long time, and one moment set it off. BYD's China-market cars (and many domestic and joint-venture cars running Android head units) have long lacked CarPlay. Owners have long joked that "BYD supports CarPlay in Europe but not in China." 2026-09-24, BYD's official Weibo announced CarPlay was coming, but it debuted only on the Denza Z9S, which had just launched 09-23. Other models would get it via "future OTA," with no timeline. DiPlay started its repo the same day (09-24). The announcement put "when will my older car get it?" in front of every owner, and DiPlay was right there to catch it (SMZDM 2026-10-02: "BYD CarPlay officially announced: official OTA not yet scheduled, older owners already using the free APK"; 11-03 the Yangwang U8 only got the OTA later).
  2. The barrier was low: just install an APK. Before this, getting CarPlay on an Android head unit meant buying a converter box like Carlinkit (about ¥200–300 in China, $180–320 overseas for Android AI Boxes) plus its closed-source APK. DiPlay emulates MFi authentication in software, embedding a device identity extracted from Carlinkit's public firmware. Any head unit that can install an APK can run it, and day-to-day use needs no ADB. Tencent News 10-21: "It's just one app. Install it and you're done, no need to even open ADB... the download button is right in your face."
  3. Chinese short-video tutorials carried it out of the niche. The real volume came from "step-by-step" tutorials on Douyin and Bilibili, not from GitHub itself. Douyin searches for "DiPlay carplay" (TikHub, 2026-11-06) cluster between 10-01 and 10-17:
    • Lao Zhang (a top creator, 10-11): 73k likes, 16k shares;
    • Douban (10-17): 25k likes;
    • 10x Productivity (10-04): 20k likes, 10k shares;
    • ZHAOLONG (10-01): 17k likes;
    • Xiaochengxiaohe (10-08, real-world Camry test): 12k likes;
    • plus "Dingding Reads Books" with 14k shares and "Car Head Unit Researcher" with 22k shares.

This window lines up with the star curve's surge between 10-01 and 10-11. Tencent News wrote that "on video platforms, nearly every DiPlay post has thousands of likes," and some creators taught viewers to download it through Doubao.

  1. It spread from BYD to all Android head units. The author only claims BYD support, but people have installed it on Geely, Changan, Toyota Camry (8 gen), Nissan, Leapmotor, MG4, and Lynk & Co, and even on spare Android phones and tablets. The audience went from "BYD owners with older cars" to "any iPhone user with an older Android head unit" (Tencent News 10-21; multiple Douyin Camry and Toyota tutorials).
  2. One person iterating fast built goodwill. 19 versions in a month. Each release has detailed release notes and verification steps, plus diagnostic report export and 11 languages (including Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Arabic, and Russian). Native-integration features like BYD HUD navigation, steering-wheel buttons, and dashboard maps are things a converter box can't do.
  3. English tech media played a supporting role. iThinkDiff (10-01), Elseboard (09-29), Poliety (10-11), and Zendot covered it, plus byd.forum (a Russian/English BYD modding community, which posted about it the same day, 09-24). It didn't hit Hacker News (not in the hackernews database), and no major X accounts appear in the x-radar corpus. On the Chinese side there were reposts from Weibo big-V "AiKeKe-AiShenghuo" (cited by Smzdm), Zhihu columns, and CSDN.

Why people kept it: it's free and replaces a hardware box that costs hundreds of yuan, and it's usable every day once installed, which explains the high download-to-star ratio (887k downloads vs 13k stars). It has plenty of problems, but those problems became ongoing tutorial and discussion material: some head units work and others don't, wireless connections drop after 0.2.21 updates, and switching back from the reversing camera requires reconnecting (Smzdm).

Competitors

ProductWhereTimelineScaleHow DiPlay differs
xcertplay(shilapi)Open source2026-09-121,578★The upstream of DiPlay. It needs the MFi chip built into the head unit, or an external CH341+MFi breakout board, so there's a hardware barrier. DiPlay embeds the extracted identity, runs purely in software, and copies the DiAuto UI that BYD owners already know.
Hardware plus closed-source APKYearsMajor brand, sold on Amazon / AliExpressCosts ¥200–300 or several hundred dollars for hardware. DiPlay is free and needs no box.
Big-company featuresOfficially announced 2026-09-24, launched first on Denza Z9S, Yangwang U11-03 got OTA 8Official and genuine, but no timeline for older models. DiPlay covers the installed base the official route ignores.
open-headunit(andreknieriem)Open source2025-103,221★Targets the Carplay2Air wireless box firmware, still requires an MFi chip
catplayOpen source2026-07160★Also targets box firmware
LIVI(f-io)Open source2025-051,076★Rust-written Linux / macOS / Android head unit that needs a Carlinkit-style dongle
WinPlay / MacPlay / playport / carcast / wheelplayOpen sourceend of 2026-09 to early October250–313★All appeared after DiPlay, moving the receiver to PCs, Macs, and browsers, not targeting head units
Carup / CarMore / MiAuto / HiplayFree domestic head-unit phone-mirroring APKUnverified (CarMore has 0.2.x tutorials on Bilibili)Not verifiedA Douyin piece, "Which of the four free head-unit connectivity apps to pick," lists them alongside DiPlay. Unverified whether they're repackaged from DiPlay / xcertplay.
Wireless Android Auto receiver (the author's own DiAuto)Open source2026-09-22539★Same author, same UI, but Android Auto demand is much smaller. This shows the hot demand was CarPlay plus iPhone users, not the author.

Bottom line: before DiPlay, "CarPlay on an Android head unit" had only two routes: buy a hardware box, or solder your own MFi chip (xcertplay). DiPlay was the first to make it "pure software, one APK, an ordinary owner can install it." A wave of CarPlay receiver projects has since appeared on GitHub, and DiPlay's star count is about 8 times that of the second-place xcertplay.

Growth tactics (evidence)

  • Douyin / Bilibili / Xiaohongshu tutorial creators (main channel, confirmed). See the Douyin data above. Many account names include "咐置……叩苓" (a token-style string), suggesting people use codes to funnel viewers into private channels for APK distribution (Car Head Unit Researcher, Xiaolei Car Resources, Ming Plays Toyota, and others). In other words, third parties are using DiPlay to drive their own traffic and sell other head-unit software packages. Of the 19 Xiaohongshu "BYD CarPlay" results, 10 were posted within a week of the announcement, one DiPlay post got 280 likes and 373 saves (cited by Smzdm 10-02).
  • Chinese media and communities (confirmed): Tencent News (in a critical tone) 10-21, Sina 10-11, Smzdm (several articles), Zhihu columns, CSDN, the Dimi assistant byd.vju.cc, and Weibo "AiKeKe-AiShenghuo."
  • English tech sites and BYD modding communities (confirmed): byd.forum (09-24 posted the same day, has Telegram @just_byd), iThinkDiff, Elseboard, Poliety, and a Threads demo by @felixoxorz.
  • Platform event (confirmed): BYD 09-24 officially announced CarPlay, but existing cars have to wait for OTA.
  • The author's own approach (confirmed): a GitHub Pages download landing page with a large button that downloads the APK directly. The README opens with Simplified and Traditional Chinese versions, and the app supports 11 languages, clearly aimed at Chinese owners and BYD owners in the Middle East and Russian-speaking regions. The author previously built a BYD localization app and DiAuto and already had a base of users in the BYD modding community.
  • None found: no ads, Hacker News posts, or major X account promotion.

How many people know about it / copycats

  • Already a phenomenon in Chinese owner circles (dozens of tutorials over a thousand likes on Douyin, covered by Tencent News and Sina). No revenue involved; open source and free.
  • Many copycats:
    • Localized / enhanced fork serein-morii/DiPlay-CN (873★);
    • Rewrites: AllPlay (C++ rewrite), CarLink (CarPlay + AA combined), OpenXPlay-DiPlay;
    • Brand ports: DiPlay-Geely-Android43 (113★), DiPlay-Leapmotor, DiPlay-ECARX (Lynk & Co), DiPlay-MG4, DiPlay-Nissan, DiPlay-API17 (2017 Song), PlayThing (Spotify Car Thing);
    • Companion tool: head-unit version checker headunit-version-inspector;
    • SEO mirror sites: diplay.org (also a compatibility database), diplay.cc, diplay.mianshi8.net, ossnav, hysenlabs;
    • Distributors on Douyin who sell APK packages via codes.

A GitHub search for "diplay" returns 731 repos.

Differentiation, and whether it's a manufactured ranking

The differentiation comes down to one thing: turning MFi authentication from hardware into software, because the APK embeds a device identity extracted from Carlinkit's public firmware. That turns "you need a box" into "install an APK," a qualitative change for ordinary owners. This is the core reason it took off. Its upstream xcertplay still requires an MFi chip / CH341 board, and only reached 1.6k★.

The second layer is focus on one scenario: it started with BYD DiLink specifically, reused the DiAuto interface that BYD owners know, and added native-integration features like HUD, dashboard, and steering wheel controls. That gave it a foothold among the biggest pain-point group (China-market BYD iPhone owners) before spreading to all Android head units.

Costs and risks: the author states openly that the embedded private key can be extracted, and whether future iOS updates will keep accepting the identity is "unresolved," so Apple could revoke it at any time. That is both its moat and its biggest uncertainty.

What others can borrow

  • Look for time windows when a big company has just announced something but existing users are left waiting, then use a free tool to catch the neglected older users.
  • Convert a solution that needs hardware into pure software, and the barrier drops by an order of magnitude. Creators will then make tutorials for it.
  • A Chinese README, a GitHub Pages landing page with a big download button, a multilingual app, and daily release notes make it feel safe for non-developers to install.
  • Focus on a single brand (BYD). Build word of mouth in one community first, then let the community spread it outward.

Still unclear

  • Whether Apple will use an iOS update to block the extracted Carlinkit identity, and whether Carlinkit will pursue legal action.
  • How many of the 887k downloads are real head-unit installs (there are repeat downloads and mirror forwarding).
  • Whether Carup / CarMore / MiAuto are based on DiPlay's code.
  • Where the earliest stars came from (the stargazer API doesn't return timestamps). Speculation: byd.forum, Telegram, and long-time users of the author's BYD localization app. Unverified.

Sources

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.