CarPlay: CPListTemplate item limit and image memory usage

I’m working with CPListTemplate in CarPlay and have run into two issues:

  • Item limit: The documentation states that maximumItemCount is 500. In practice, when providing a list of ~2–4k items, only the first 500 are displayed. However, Apple Music on CarPlay seems to handle larger lists without this limitation. Is there an API-level approach or recommended pattern to support lists beyond this cap?
  • Image memory usage: Cells don’t appear to load lazily. Even with small images, the first 500 items load all their artwork into memory immediately, resulting in ~400–700 MB usage and high CPU loads. This seems excessive for CarPlay environments. Is there a best practice for deferring or managing image loading within CPListTemplate?

Any official guidance or known workarounds for these two issues would be very helpful.

CarPlay: CPListTemplate item limit and image memory usage
 
 
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