Portable CD Player

[BigSkies]

The music industry is making us atone for the late 90's piracy era by charging again for music already purchased. The irony!

What's even worse is these new dumb streaming platforms somehow manage to be a worse deal for both consumers and artists.

Add up the annual cost of a streaming service and math out how much music you can buy. One to two years of streaming costs is probably about what most people would buy in a lifetime.

While I don't know much about the music industry, I understand that streaming services only pay artists a fraction of what track/album purchases make.

It's just another example of big tech companies making the world worse through "disruption".

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[BigSkies]

I enjoyed discovering that my Ford Mach-E could play MP3s from a floppy disk via a USB floppy drive plugged into its USB port. I wish Rivian would let me put music on USB and play it back. (Sadly, the Mach-E wouldn't play audio CDs with a USB CD-ROM drive, only MP3 CD-R discs.)

Agree on the "don't use phone" - I'm on one of those insurance plans, too. I use Siri to operate my Bluetooth playback. Which is… hit-or-miss.

The Apple Music app thing seems to be an Apple limitation, not a Rivian. It's the same way on Tesla, and even on Android phones. To use the app at all on anything other than Apple devices or Windows app, you have to have an Apple Music subscription.

Yep. Rivian clearly doesn't have the market power to make Apple not screw over Apple customers.

Rivian does have the power to build non-shitty music alternatives.

I blame Apple for enshitifying their music product.

I blame Rivian for not coming up with some alternative.

 

[C.R. Rivian]

You do also need an Apple Music subscription to use it in vehicle, sadly. You don't need an Apple Music subscription to use it in the Music or iTunes apps on Mac or Windows; but it appears that vehicle apps are gated to only let you do anything at all if you have an Apple Music subscription.

it also requires a Rivian Connect+ subscription unless you use a WiFi hotspot. So… This ain't gonna save you money, but it will let you play *YOUR* CD collection in the vehicle.

(That is the downside of the Amazon and Spotify methods - they only work for songs they have in their collection and for Amazon, that you have purchased at Amazon. This works with obscure garage bands that aren't available online anywhere.)

If you have an iPhone, you can just use Bluetooth to connect to the vehicle and do it via Bluetooth from the iPhone Apple Music app without a full Apple Music subscription, just the iTunes Match.

Here's how to sign up for iTunes Match: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108935

Minor correction on Amazon...the unlimited subscription includes everything they have whether you purchased it or not. Give Rivian's Alexa something to do

 

[shamoo]

I didn't read through the entire thread. I'm in my mid 40s and maybe not "old" but I grew up with tapes and then CDs. It took me a while to get into streaming because "CDs are better" mainly because I was used to it.

Once I went streaming in the last decade or so, it really is a game changer.

For the price of you trying to integrate a CD player or do something which may not look right, you could spend the money on a service like Spotify. As a "middle aged" person, it still amazes me that you can find literally ANYTHING on there. It is a game changer. Any CD/album you can think of from any genre or year. Foreign music. Kids music. Podcasts. Comedy. Even audiobooks (but that might be a separate subscription?).

With a monthly subscription, you can share it with family/friends and if you split the cost, it may not be much at all. And you can also use the service outside of the vehicle.

Just my take.

 

[CharonPDX]

Minor correction on Amazon...the unlimited subscription includes everything they have whether you purchased it or not. Give Rivian's Alexa something to do

In my case, I don't pay for Connect+, and I refuse to pay Amazon any money if I can help it. (I'll only buy things off Amazon if there is either literally no other option, or the price is less than half what it would be elsewhere for a "commodity item". I will never buy anything "premium" from them, I'll pay the extra cost-premium to get it locally and support a local business.) I wish Rivian had a non-Alexa voice option even with less capability; but as it is, mine isn't logged in to my Amazon account, and without C+, it can't do much anyway.

 

[C.R. Rivian]

In my case, I don't pay for Connect+, and I refuse to pay Amazon any money if I can help it. (I'll only buy things off Amazon if there is either literally no other option, or the price is less than half what it would be elsewhere for a "commodity item". I will never buy anything "premium" from them, I'll pay the extra cost-premium to get it locally and support a local business.) I wish Rivian had a non-Alexa voice option even with less capability; but as it is, mine isn't logged in to my Amazon account, and without C+, it can't do much anyway.

I was an Audible addict way before Amazon absorbed them in 2008. With Connect+ and the Audible app, I can dip into books I want to revisit. Right now, every trip takes me a bit farther revisiting Truman by David McCullough while I listen to new content walking the dog and working in the yard. I like Amazon shopping a lot, but, well, you do you. Amazon and VW both have some problematic histories, but without Amazon, Rivian might not have gotten to be where they are and without VW they might not get where I want them to be.

 

[CharonPDX]

I was an Audible addict way before Amazon absorbed them in 2008. With Connect+ and the Audible app, I can dip into books I want to revisit. Right now, every trip takes me a bit farther revisiting Truman by David McCullough while I listen to new content walking the dog and working in the yard. I like Amazon shopping a lot, but, well, you do you. Amazon and VW both have some problematic histories, but without Amazon, Rivian might not have gotten to be where they are and without VW they might not get where I want them to be.

One nice thing about Audible - even without an active Audible or Amazon Prime subscription, you can still stream your owned audiobooks. (Just did that on a road trip.) And if you use a WiFi hotspot (including using your phone as a hotspot) you can use the Audible source in Rivian without Connect+.

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