bn-7bc
macrumors 6502a
The ui/ux might be solid, npbut that might matter kess than you think as people seam to want car play and anything else, that might entail learning new apps or whatever will create friction Nd a lot of people hate that
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Rivian Explains Why CarPlay Debate Will Become 'Completely Obsolete'
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You can’t gaslight people into thinking they don’t want CarPlay. This kind of leadership shows you they’re doomed.
Yes, there is that, but the larger motivation is that the car companies are losing control of their own vehicles and increasingly becoming pigeonholed into the role of engine and body manufacturers. And this, unfortunately for them is lower margin business. In a world where every car’s technology package is based on CarPlay or Android Auto, the only thing left for the car manufacturers to differentiate on is body shape. To be clear, I don’t see a way around this, and every car I buy going forward will have CarPlay. The auto manufacturers always sucked at tech.
As others have noted, just support CarPlay. It’s what the people want.
Then if your interface is so good people won’t use CarPlay, right? Oh, but they know that isn’t true and want to force people to use their UI and subscription services.
Then if your interface is so good people won’t use CarPlay, right? Oh, but they know that isn’t true and want to force people to use their UI and subscription services.
jabbawok
macrumors 6502
It’s not about what it can and can’t do, it’s about having a consistent interface for all my technology. Also If I want to use something like the BBC sounds app on a car that only supports Bluetooth then I’m having to interact with the phone to make it go rather than the car interface. Inconvenient at best and dangerous at worst. Also why not have it. Customers who prefer the car manufacturer’s UI can use that. And the rest of us can use CarPlay.
The point is that the vast majority of Rivian owners entered the brand thinking they wanted CarPlay, but after using the native system for awhile, no longer care about it.
Or they just resigned themselves to the situation and were , well, I suppose I can live without it.
every vehicle is still going to be different, you still have to figure out where the windshield wipers are, or how to turn on the hazard lights, Car play doesn't solve that problem.
BBC sounds is a podcast app? you won't have the app on screen, but rivian can control the app via the steering wheel controls. you can use buttons for play/pause, skip/rewind 10 seconds etc.. arguably easier than using a screen.
I get that it's nice to use an app, but Rivian is based on Android, so once their user base is large enough, I imagine there is a good case to have BBC port it over. CarPlay isn't free. manufacturers have to spend money and time on the implementation and pay apple to certify it and many users don't care. as you saw in the article, users that thought they wanted it when they bought a rivian don't anymore.
As a Rivian owner I can say I don't care about CarPlay anymore. it's not needed or useful to me. after going through rental cars and using CarPlay...in comparison it's a mess.
unless the car doesn't support usb-c... like the rental car I was in last week. it only had a type-a port and no CarPlay via bluetooth. pretty dumb
If engineering resources were infinite, you’d have a point. Every engineering hour spent tracking the eternally moving target of CarPlay APIs and Bluetooth flakiness endemic to the platform is one less hour spent polishing the native system.
Why do you think the native systems in other brands are and continue to be so bad?
And they want the telemetry data. I wouldnt be surprised if a significant portion of Rivian’s net income come from sale of telemetry data to data brokers and ad networks
You could also just read their 10-k filings to learn.
Here you go!
Rivian Investors: Key Investor Relations Information
Get comprehensive investor relations insights from Rivian. Discover detailed information for Rivian investors, including financial updates and reports.
rivian.com
tbayrgs
macrumors 604
Unless you work in the automated self driving industry, I’m every bit as educated as you. You don’t use the tech either since there is nothing more than lvl 2 self driving that you can purchase, which itself has been around for over 10 years.
Save my post—will wager anything you want that we will not have ubiquitous, widely available level 5 self driving vehicles for consumers in 15 years. Hell, I’d take that bet at 20 years.
pjschmid
macrumors member
A better explanation is they changed the parameters they used to survey to give themselves the answer they wanted. So for example 70% was when the were looking at all car buyers and the 25% was just buyers that would even consider a Rivian. Well, if it gives an answer that makes the higher ups smile that's all that counts, right?
Ramchi
macrumors 65816
CarPlay cannot over take the core Engineering aspects of the vehicle. Any self respecting brand would never allow such moves. CarPlay is not driving the car, there are enough alternatives and methods that CarPlay or Android Auto does. Maps & direction, Bluetooth calling and Music are the major feature that most people use in CarPlay that can be done without Car Play as well. Car companies have to pay expensive licensing fee for enabling these features and giving complete access to their equipment to a third party vendor like Apple or Android!
CarPlay is about having access to the data the lives on my phone. The phone is the center of my digital life, not my car.
Rivian is just trying to gaslight us into paying a subscription to access the data on our phones. Oh, and do it badly.
Rivian is just trying to gaslight us into paying a subscription to access the data on our phones. Oh, and do it badly.
Thank you, and yup:You could also just read their 10-k filings to learn.
Here you go!
Rivian Investors: Key Investor Relations Information
Get comprehensive investor relations insights from Rivian. Discover detailed information for Rivian investors, including financial updates and reports.
“
- Automotive segment gross profit loss was $(62) million compared to $92 million in gross profit for the same quarter in 2025, due primarily to the $100 million decrease in sales of automotive regulatory credits and lower production volumes, resulting in a $42 million and $3 million increase in depreciation and stock based compensation respectively.
- Software and services segment gross profit was $181 million, a $67 million increase over the same quarter of the previous year, primarily due to higher vehicle electrical architecture and software development services and vehicle repair and maintenance services.”
I definitely still have a point. The answer is very simple. They're bad because car companies don't have the same talent for developing software that Apple and Google do.
It has nothing to do with saving engineering hours.