Common Myths About CarPlay

[Dark-Fx]

So is one. My wife won’t consider an R1S because she prefers the CarPlay in her BMW. She’s not the only one. When you’re in the business of selling cars, “buy another vehicle if you don’t like it” isn’t necessary the best strategy to increase sales. I don’t understand why people get defensive when they hear other people express their preference for a certain interface. Millions of people happily use CarPlay and some of them will choose another vehicle because of that preference. Is that really controversial? Either way, it looks like the market is going to mostly solve the problem. The evplay CarPlay adapter is supposed to come out next month. I’m looking forward to having Waze and onX off-road on the big screen. Between that and the Comma3x , we can solve some of the biggest competitive disadvantages Rivian has. Maybe I can convince my wife to switch to a R1S after seeing it. Just seems a shame to lose another sale to Hyundai or BMW over CarPlay.

Your wife won't consider a "not a BMW". The BMW loaner I got once when my R1T was in for service sat in my driveway for a month, because it wasn't fun or interesting to drive and the built-in infotainment stuff was 100% garbage. I drove my Polestar 2 instead.

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[Sgt Beavis]

I just want FUNCTIONAL Apple Music and Waze. If I can get those, I'm a happy camper. Rivian's NAV is still very shoddy at this point. It really sucks at routing and has none of the features that make Waze great like community reporting of incidents, traffic, speed traps, etc. A couple weeks ago my wife and I were off roading at WinterPark, CO. We set the Nav to head to the Rivian Space in Denver.

The NAV should have routed us to I-70, straight to the exit that would put us pretty damn close to the Space. However, it instead wanted us to exit at Idaho Springs and drive up to Black Hawk, CO. Then take hwy 119 to hwy 6 to Golden then deposit us back on I-70. This was a 70 minute drive compared to 30 minutes just staying on I-70 to begin with. I'm guessing it thought we might like to stop in Black Hawk to place some Poker for a few hours.

There was no traffic jams or other issues that would have justified that routing. It's not something that should be trusted IMO.

Don't get me started on how often Apple Music crashes. What a cluster F.

 

[MightyJawa]

My feeling is that CarPlay allows us to use our existing phone data plans for all of our “app data”. This limits the value of the Rivian Connection+ subscription or whatever it is called. I think that’s the real reason they don’t want to allow it.

 

[sacramentoelectric]

Your wife won't consider a "not a BMW". The BMW loaner I got once when my R1T was in for service sat in my driveway for a month, because it wasn't fun or interesting to drive and the built-in infotainment stuff was 100% garbage. I drove my Polestar 2 instead.

You might be right. We had a Model X and switched to an iX. The iX is better made than the Tesla but the packaging isn't nearly as good. The lease is up in two years and I have an R2 reservation but her three favorite things about the BMW are the build quality, the adas, and carplay. Rivian can probably do well enough with #1 but #2 is a maybe and #3 will require a third party adapter. She'll probably be happier in an EX90 or another iX. But once I get carplay installed in my R1T, maybe I can tempt her into a used R1S with a Comma3x and an EVplay adapter. It would be nice to have a third row again.

I don't know which BMW loaner you had but it's hard to imagine how you thought Carplay was garbage compared to the Rivian UI. Did you try it? Maps is light year ahead of what we have not to mention much better Apple Music and Spotify integrations.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

You might be right. We had a Model X and switched to an iX. The iX is better made than the Tesla but the packaging isn't nearly as good. The lease is up in two years and I have an R2 reservation but her three favorite things about the BMW are the build quality, the adas, and carplay. Rivian can probably do well enough with #1 but #2 is a maybe and #3 will require a third party adapter. She'll probably be happier in an EX90 or another iX. But once I get carplay installed in my R1T, maybe I can tempt her into a used R1S with a Comma3x and an EVplay adapter. It would be nice to have a third row again.

I don't know which BMW loaner you had but it's hard to imagine how you thought Carplay was garbage compared to the Rivian UI. Did you try it? Maps is light year ahead of what we have not to mention much better Apple Music and Spotify integrations.

My wife has an i4 M50 and CarPlay is crap compared to my Rivian software. There are things I like about that car, but the software isn't one of them.

 

[R1Yes]

My wife has an i4 M50 and CarPlay is crap compared to my Rivian software. There are things I like about that car, but the software isn't one of them.

Hard to compare the areas where Rivian’s software controls the vehicle, but I’m having trouble conceiving of a CarPlay implementation that’s so bad at navigation, media playback, messaging, phone functions, and hundreds of third-party apps—areas where CarPlay is, to my mind, much better— that it would be “crap” by comparison.

It’s fine to love Rivian—service issues aside, we love ours—and also be open-minded about ways Rivian might itself be open-minded about ways to make the vehicles more appealing to more people.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Hard to compare the areas where Rivian’s software controls the vehicle, but I’m having trouble conceiving of a CarPlay implementation that’s so bad at navigation, media playback, messaging, phone functions, and hundreds of third-party apps—areas where CarPlay is, to my mind, much better— that it would be “crap” by comparison.

It’s fine to love Rivian—service issues aside, we love ours—and also be open-minded about ways Rivian might itself be open-minded about ways to make the vehicles more appealing to more people.

Well, here in the foothills of the moutains cell service inside the car is spotty. So CarPlay doesn't sync nearly as well as the big shark fin antenna on the top of my car does. Not only that, but the fact that the keyboard is locked is complete trash IMO. Usually when I find myself in need of navigation my wife is acting co pilot. She is locked out from entering a destination on the infotainment unless I use voice.

The phone doesn't work any differently on either system for my usage, and I happen to like the Rivian navigation. It has taken me to the correct destination where Apple maps AND google maps has screwed up on more than one occasion. Having Apple music and Sirius native work just fine for my Rivian so I don't need CarPlay for that either.

There isn't a single use besides answering a text that CarPlay does better for me than the native Rivian system does. Texts can wait until I get where I'm going regardless, so it's not a big deal for me and the fact that the sync sucks means it's a net negative for me.

 

[jimbones]

No offense but I am pretty sure, according to the universal internet rules of UI and software commentary, when you acknowledge "I work on ... Sharepoint" you forfeit any right to critique anyone else's software or UI design for a minimum of two decades.

This is a totally valid argument. lol.

 

[jimbones]

Well, here in the foothills of the moutains cell service inside the car is spotty. So CarPlay doesn't sync nearly as well as the big shark fin antenna on the top of my car does. Not only that, but the fact that the keyboard is locked is complete trash IMO. Usually when I find myself in need of navigation my wife is acting co pilot. She is locked out from entering a destination on the infotainment unless I use voice.

The phone doesn't work any differently on either system for my usage, and I happen to like the Rivian navigation. It has taken me to the correct destination where Apple maps AND google maps has screwed up on more than one occasion. Having Apple music and Sirius native work just fine for my Rivian so I don't need CarPlay for that either.

There isn't a single use besides answering a text that CarPlay does better for me than the native Rivian system does. Texts can wait until I get where I'm going regardless, so it's not a big deal for me and the fact that the sync sucks means it's a net negative for me.

Just a note that the keyboard lock is an implementation decision made by the automaker. They choose when to lock the keyboard, or whether to lock it at all. Some automakers decide to leave it fully unlocked, like Audi, VW, Hyundai, and others. This may change based on model year.

 

[BrianB]

Rivian is much more than an automaker and I think people do not understand this. Their whole premise of creating their own systems is not for only Rivian use. This was first brought to light with the VW pairing and the use by VW of the Rivian stacks. Rivian is diversifying a bit here and trying to make a product that will be advantageous for other automakers to onboard. Most automakers do one thing well, build cars (well some don't get that part right either), but when it comes to software, they lack the experience and backgrounds to make it happen in a great user experience- so they tend to throw Carplay and/or Andriod Auto in to make up for some of their lackings.

I get that Rivian is a software and systems centric car maker. What I do not get is the argument that Rivian, at a couple hundred thousand vehicles per year, could compete with Apple CarPlay (~100 M users) for infotainment and some basic vehicle controls. It makes no more sense than Rivian making a music streaming service to compete with Spotify.

 

[COdogman]

I get that Rivian is a software and systems centric car maker. What I do not get is the argument that Rivian, at a couple hundred thousand vehicles per year, could compete with Apple CarPlay (~100 M users) for infotainment and some basic vehicle controls. It makes no more sense than Rivian making a music streaming service to compete with Spotify.

Rivian isn’t “competing” with CarPlay. Apple doesn’t manufacture vehicles

 

[BrianB]

Rivian isn’t “competing” with CarPlay. Apple doesn’t manufacture vehicles

I disagree. Apple makes CarPlay, a vehicle infotainment and navigation ecosystem. Rivian makes their own infotainment and navigation system and refuses to enable CarPlay on Rivian vehicles. I’d prefer Apple CarPlay, based on current functionally, and I suspect CarPlay and Waze will keep improving faster than Rivian’s version, due to Apple’s CarPlay scale advantage.

 

[therealcmj]

I think what *COULD* be a happy medium, is to do what Google/Apple have done with AA/CP. Develop and SDK and guidelines for UI design and convince a small number of companies to build their apps to run on the Rivian UI. This is what Google/Apple do with 3rd party apps for AA/CP.

Would this ever happen? I doubt it. I don't see Spotify wanting to build the Spotify app for Rivian, and then have to maintain it going forward. If this were to happen, Rivian could spend Infotainment SW Engineering time and resources on the platform, the interaction with the vehicle systems, and a core app or two (three? ???) that aren't accessing outside services (Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc.)

That's what AA/CP are. Apple and Google make SDKs and there are untold hundreds of thousands of developers working on apps for Android and iOS and adding the necessary bits to support AA/CP. Every single one of those apps then works in any car with developers needing to do precisely zero extra work.

Given the small user population absolutely no company would have their developers invest in implementing with Rivian's SDK. It just doesn't make any financial sense.

 

[COdogman]

I disagree. Apple makes CarPlay, a vehicle infotainment and navigation ecosystem. Rivian makes their own infotainment and navigation system and refuses to enable CarPlay on Rivian vehicles. I’d prefer Apple CarPlay, based on current functionally, and I suspect CarPlay and Waze will keep improving faster than Rivian’s version, due to Apple’s CarPlay scale advantage.

CarPlay is not an infotainment and navigation system. It is a platform for mobile apps that users may or may not have on their phones that can be mirrored onto an existing vehicle infotainment system. It contains no mapping data or other information. The apps in CarPlay don’t work on their own like a true vehicle nav. They require a phone and the corresponding app.

You can prefer it all you like - Rivian has been totally honest and transparent about this from day 1. It’s not happening.

 

[ksumnole]

Relax everyone, as soon as Jeff is back from his wedding in Venice and his contracts run out with Rivian, and Rivian realizes it's losing more money from people withholding from buying their vehicles instead of paying their connect+ subscription, that will implement CarPlay. Then you can all leave your mom's USB sticks at home and tell your wife to sell their BMW.

With Love, from Subaru.

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