Seven years after Apple’s CarPlay interface changed the way millions of us communicate, navigate and consume media in our vehicles, the tech giant wants to extend its influence over cars.

Apple’s project that’s internally known as ‘IronHeart’ is investigating technology that would allow its iPhone to access and control a car’s air conditioning system, the tone and balance of audio played through the speakers, movement of electrically-adjustable seats and other functions.

Bloomberg says this is very much a phone-based technology and not a dedicated in-vehicle operating system like Android Automotive. The Android system was developed with Google, Intel and car manufacturers, and designed to be built into vehicles at the factory.

Instead, Bloomberg’s report likens IronHeart to Apple’s HomeKit, which allows you to control features like the lights, cameras, thermostats, cameras and sockets in your house via smartphone app.

Related: Ferrari Hires Ex-Apple Designer Jony Ive To Work On An Electric Car

CarPlay was introduced in 2014 and along with its rival smartphone-based control system, Android Auto, has been fairly widely adopted by the car industry. But not every carmaker has thrown all their eggs in the Apple basket. Few OEMs have taken up the opportunity to show CarPlay on a vehicle’s instrument cluster in addition to the main console screen, or given buyers the chance to lock and unlock their cars using an iPhone or Apple Watch (as seen on the BMW above).

Automotive News notes that Apple previously allowed its Siri voice assistant to access certain vehicle features including climate control, but this was dependent on the support of OEMs who failed to pick it up and Apple removed those features in its recent iOS 15 update.

As Automotive News notes, however, if Apple can eventually manage to integrate its phones into our cars more extensively, the devices will become so entrenched in every aspect of our daily lives from paying for goods to tracking our gym workout and unlocking our front doors that we’ll be very unlikely to want to switch to another brand of smartphone.

Would you find it useful to be able to operate more of the features on your car via your smartphone, rather than having to jump between CarPlay and your car’s existing control systems, or does Apple already have far too much control over your life? Leave a comment and let us know.