Lack of Android Auto / Waze is a reason to cancel

[Darkon]

... yet people still want to cling to the comforts of the present/past.

Everybody here is interested in buying the very first EV truck in existence, hardly people that you should accuse of "clinging to the past".

You can accept whatever Rivian or Steve Jobs tells you as gospel if you want … personally I prefer to challenge them.

PS: that quote is a condescending and appalling statement. Not a fanboy if you could not tell.

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[jjswan33]

It's kind of funny. Here we have a company making a revolutionary product and pushing us into the future, yet people still want to cling to the comforts of the present/past. If everyone did that, CP and AA would never exist in the first place. In my opinion, they are only bridge solutions and won't exist in ten years (Google already started teaming with OEMs to make integrated systems to replace AA).

"People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”

Steve Jobs

Well to be clear. Having CarPlay isn’t my primary concern. The missing function will be Apple Music, Google Maps?, Waze for example. If they want to include those my complaints about CarPlay go away.

For instance talking about maps. I notice that a lot of points of Interest (such as trailheads and specific forest roads) only exist in google maps at least relative to other map databases I have used.

Just to be clear I am very much still keeping my LE pre-order. I think the reviews are awesome and it fits my lifestyle perfectly but I still have disappointments with the final product (ie. The non-opening glass roof, The back seat not folding up flat, missing Apple Music/google maps, the cup holders). I’ll wait until I can get a closer look though before making my final determination.

 

[fromSf]

Personally, AA or CP is not a deal breaker for me. If Rivian can add it in the future its great.

 

[SeaGeo]

I am willing to bet 90% of complaints of lack of Carplay / AA will go away if they have 3 things:
1. Great navigation that make people NOT long for google / waze / applemaps.
2. Integration to more music services (Apple Music being the next largest marketshare)
3. Solid text/messages integration


There are definitely other use cases that people care about, but those 3 cover the grand majority of the must have features from CarPlay.

Honest question for Tesla owners. How are you managing podcasts or audio books? Excluding the use of Spotify for podcasts. Stuck with Bluetooth streaming from your phone?

 

[Darkon]

For instance talking about maps. I notice that a lot of points of Interest (such as trailheads and specific forest roads) only exist in google maps at least relative to other map databases I have used.

Have you tried Gaia ? https://www.gaiagps.com/

Side note, it is available in CP/AA... I doubt it is in Rivian. But hopefully they have similar data.

 

[jjswan33]

Have you tried Gaia ? https://www.gaiagps.com/

Side note, it is available in CP/AA... I doubt it is in Rivian. But hopefully they have similar data.

Hey thanks. I am aware of Gaia. Didn't realize you could do road directions with it, I think of it as more of a backcountry trail/topo application. I have a different app I use for that purpose but typically use Google maps to navigate to trailheads.

 

[DucRider]

Every person will almost certainly have to compromise something on their "want" list.
For me, the EV drivetrain and overall vehicle capabilities far outweighs the preference of a pet app. YMMV.

Rivian has made their choice on what they are going to offer and made it very clear what that would be. Buy it or don't buy it. The choice is yours. If AA and Waze are truly "must have", the decision is simple, so not sure what all the fuss is about.

 

[Diddy123]

Rivian has made their choice on what they are going to offer and made it very clear what that would be. Buy it or don't buy it. The choice is yours. If AA and Waze are truly "must have", the decision is simple, so not sure what all the fuss is about.

Many, many people just learned of this choice yesterday when all of the reviews came out. It's not exactly something Rivian has been advertising, and if you're not on these forums, how would you have known that something that is so common in other vehicles would be missing?

Folks are reacting to that news and expressing disappointment, just as many of the reviewers did. Are we not allowed to have discussions around features and functions (or lack thereof) on this forum?

 

[SANZC02]

Honest question for Tesla owners. How are you managing podcasts or audio books? Excluding the use of Spotify for podcasts. Stuck with Bluetooth streaming from your phone?

To be honest, none of those are high priorities for me.

Map in the Tesla is powered by google and works fine with real time traffic.

One thing I did miss originally was the ability for it to read my text messages but that was addressed with an OTA a couple of years later.

 

[Scott]

Every person will almost certainly have to compromise something on their "want" list.
For me, the EV drivetrain and overall vehicle capabilities far outweighs the preference of a pet app. YMMV.

Rivian has made their choice on what they are going to offer and made it very clear what that would be. Buy it or don't buy it. The choice is yours. If AA and Waze are truly "must have", the decision is simple, so not sure what all the fuss is about.

I bet 2 years from now most Rivian customers will like the adventure brand, but rarely do anything they can't do with a Subaru. For most consumers, there are extremely diminishing returns after certain performance levels both on and off road. The Rivian is WELL in to the long tail of those diminishing returns for most customers. However, everyone gets annoyed if they have to pay a for a second music subscription service because their preferred one isn't in their car. Everyone gets annoyed if the maps don't give great directions, have all the POI data, or update frequently enough. Everyone gets annoyed if they have to fumble with their phone to answer a text.

I 100% agree with you on people making their own choice, but the tech integration and quality is a major selling point for a huge number of consumers. That is evidenced by how often this comes up on a forum where people are self selecting early adopters of an adventure EV brand.

 

[Scott]

To be honest, none of those are high priorities for me.

Map in the Tesla is powered by google and works fine with real time traffic.

One thing I did miss originally was the ability for it to read my text messages but that was addressed with an OTA a couple of years later.

I was really hoping for Rivian to have maps powered by google. They copied soooo much from Tesla, this is one area I was hoping for the same. I am assuming Tesla still has no Apple Music integration, correct? It was rumored to be coming like a year ago, I think from another Elon quote that never panned out.

 

[flabyboy]

CarPlay seems like an "easy" way to satisfy most people... So I don't know why they won't do it.

As it is, I'm willing to give them a shot, but they're going to need to build more app integrations than just Spotify. We use Apple Music, and I want to keep using Apple Music. Give me tight integration with that and I'll probably be happy. Well, that and I want good Messages integration, as well. Volvo does a decent integration with Messages, so I know it's possible.

Concur with all these points. Messages is huge with CarPlay. Although in my wife’s Kia that involves Siri. Thinking Siri and Alexa may not get along well

 

[SANZC02]

I was really hoping for Rivian to have maps powered by google. They copied soooo much from Tesla, this is one area I was hoping for the same. I am assuming Tesla still has no Apple Music integration, correct? It was rumored to be coming like a year ago, I think from another Elon quote that never panned out.

My car does not have it, I can't speak to some of the newer ones. I have older hardware from 2016 which is the AP1 hardware. Some of the newer features they have been deploying lately are not compatible with this hardware.

 

[Scott]

I'll add one thing:

I won't buy a car based on the promise of what "might come with OTA updates". However, no car can OTA update a suspension like Rivians, or the performance, or the styling. It is possible to limp along with bluetooth audio and hope it improves. If you buy a different EV, you are stuck with low ground clearance, no off road capabilities and all of the other things Rivian excels at. And if you buy an ICE, you can't OTA update it being an EV.

If you have to accept a compromise, compromise in the area that MIGHT get better over the areas that definitely can't.

 

[jtshaw]

To be honest, none of those are high priorities for me.

Map in the Tesla is powered by google and works fine with real time traffic.

One thing I did miss originally was the ability for it to read my text messages but that was addressed with an OTA a couple of years later.

I too have never missed Android Auto or CarPlay in my Tesla. From a UX perspective, I suspect part of the issue here is AA and CP aren't actually well suited to these larger displays or cars that blend UX across displays (nav turn by turn being on the display in front of the driver while the map is on the big one, for example). Windowing it would work, but you definitely lose some control over your experience doing that.

I do wonder if the Alexa integration will save users some grief. Alexa allows you access to a ton of music/podcast/etc services (including Amazon Music, Apple Music/Podcasts, Spotify, SiriusXM, TuneIn, Pandora, etc) and, presumably, you can just use voice to launch into those experiences if that is your jam?

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