[photojosh]

Yes, this is one of my pet peeves too. The steering wheel has volume controls with press-to-mute, then right next to them are forward and back controls... a press on that control would be perfect for play/pause, but alas— no.

[DavidAdams]

My volvo's big central volume control has a large play/pause button in the middle and it works to pause anything that Carplay is playing. There's also a play/pause control on the steering wheel. Overall, my 2016 Volvo does a pretty good job with Carplay integration, though it also has a bunch of native software that mostly sucks in comparison, such as a voice control that I've never been able to use.

[guan]

So it turns out that if you turn the volume all the way down to zero, it pauses playback. And if you turn it up again, it starts playing. I didn’t test whether navigation messages from Maps can still be heard. Not perfect as it takes a few seconds to do when you might need an immediate pause to avoid distraction, but it’s probably good enough for me.