Rivians software is quite good. The number of times I've wished it had carplay was low and is now zero that they moved to Google maps instead of their own in the past 6 months (the maps themselves and the interface were totally fine, but traffic prediction and were bad at times). They are fairly good at changing when change is needed.
The latter suggestion is IMHO a really bad idea for companies the size of rivian. it would cost a lot of time and energy to integrate carplay and android auto very very well. Most cars are already a mishmash of software pieces, so replacing 60% of that with a simple carplay integration might buy them a lot. My wife's car is the first model year from that manufacturer with carplay and it's just horribly done. Duplicate voice assistants, and carplay only uses 75% of the screen (this is not fixed by the software changes in ios26 around this. This is the manufacturer not giving a shit) just to start. Despite all that it is still better than the smorgasbord of shit that it is without carplay. That is not true of rivian. It is already good software that is well integrated. if they moved, the same has to remain true. The upfront cost of moving would be large, not provide tons of benefit to existing customers (it's not in the top 5 for most owners), and they aren't large enough to have parallel software teams, so it would slow down development on things owners and near-purchasers care more about.
In the end good product development is at least as much about saying no as it is about saying yes.
saying yes to everything and making them all options does not actually make for good products (or softwaare)
in the end, they seem pretty good about holding themselves accountable to whether they’re succeeding in their various bets or not. and doing something reasonable with that info. As long as they continur that I'm not too worried, because it’ll lead to the CarPlay if it needs to.
> The latter suggestion is IMHO a really bad idea for companies the size of rivian. it would cost a lot of time and energy to integrate carplay and android auto very very well.
This can't possibly be true. CarPlay and Android Auto are just an MPEG video stream to the car's display, plus a simple API to send taps back to the phone. Hell, you can buy a complete CarPlay/AA head unit for $200 at Best Buy.
I mean, if it is true that Rivian can't even grab an OSS video decoder and run it on their system... that makes VW's due-diligence (before throwing billions of dollars at Rivian for software) look very shaky.
The part of CarPlay I’m unhappy with is the (in)ability to plan EV trips with charging stops. Adding charging in a good native nav interface is simple: you enter the route and it picks chargers for you if the distance exceeds current range. In standard CarPlay this doesn’t happen automatically. Presumably it could, but in addition to charging station search and planning, CarPlay would need an interface to take current battery level and some other preferences that would tune the algorithm for specific cars. Not sure if that exists, but the cars I’ve used haven’t exhibited it.
Spotify is the devil. I stream music from my NAS by a Subsonic-compatible server via Wireguard. I'm not going back years in time to connect my phone and control playback via basic Bluetooth like some troglodyte.
Shame Rivian won't be on my list of cars to try due to the lack of Android Auto.
Now, I hope VAG won't carry over the same mistake (actually, I think them trying to use Rivian's software is going to fail spectacularly, and we won't see it happening, but that's for a different discussion).
Works pretty well for me across two C8 vehicles. The only complaint I really have is when my wife and I are both in the car and it randomly decides to pick up the non-drivers phone even though the right driver profile is selected.
I have many complaints about the MMI system, but wireless CarPlay isn’t one of them.
What a low value piece of writing. I had to hunt around the episode to find if he describes why, etc, but couldn't be arsed wasting more than a minute of my time.
But, "AI in cars" is interesting. I guess it's already possible to build a clone of the KITT computer from the Knight Rider using LLM. (Is this a millennial reference, or a boomer one?). Although I wonder what features would make it more than a gimmick. Something like, "Michael, that Tesla has been following us for more than 15 miles. I ran the plates and it's..."
For electric carmakers that are willing to spend the money on making their built-in system great, I think it's the right decision. The integration with charging status and locations isn't something that Apple or Android offers. Because charging is a different beast than pumping gasoline, it needs to be integrated into the driving experience. Apple Maps doesn't have the vertical integration to know that the Rivan's battery's level of charge and to tell it to start preconditioning the battery to be charged when the vehicle arrives at the charging station, or to even tell the user that they need to charge in order to reach their destination or where the chargers along the way are.
I'll bet Apple would play ball and tell Rivian if the destination is a charger.
That aside, what about safely messaging people, listening to my audiobooks/podcasts in my app of choice, and interacting with the apps and shortcuts on my phone through Siri?
It's the wrong choice IMO.
To be clear, I know Bluetooth audio is available. But having everything on the screen makes it easier.
And you're entitled to your own opinion! It's not about your iPhone telling the vehicle it's going to a charger, but that charging is part of the process. It needs to be baked into the roots of the navigation system. Apple's just not positioned to care enough about that.
I can't speak for Rivan's dev team's plans, but all the big car manufacturers have a voice command feature. How well it works is a different question. Siri is....how do I say this politely. Siri is best used in very specific circumstances for specific tasks. I can't imagine Rivian isn't looking to compete with the features Siri offers in those particular circumstances.
If it were GM or a different legacy automaker we were discussing here, I'd have different things to say, but Rivian isn't one of the big three.
The navigation point is well taken, and I'm not advocating for Rivian to tear that out. I'll use the Rivian stuff when I'm navigating to a charger or doing a road trip.
CarPlay is purely additive.
As much as I complain about all the crap Apple gets wrong, no car manufacturer will beat them on UI or the choice of apps.
> The integration with charging status and locations isn't something that Apple or Android offers.
Er, what? My EV integrates with CarPlay. Apple Maps does route planning (including charging stops) based on the car's current and projected SoC. It even automatically updates the charging plan on the fly if/when conditions change.
CarPlay literally already does all the things you claim it can't do. On cars not built by Rivian, of course.
This is long term the right choice. Tesla has the best software competency of any manufacture and if you want to compete with them you can't offload major bits of functionality to a third party. At this point in our software journey in cars, user experience is everything. If I can't have a car that I walk up to with my phone in my pocket and get in and drive, with automatic doors unlocking, and all my settings automatically set to me, then its a net loss.
I can barely get my phone to reliably pair with my Ford, but my Tesla always picks up me as the driver and just does everything correctly. Rivian needs to offer me that same level of polish to be competitive.
Sad because, imo, CarPlay is really good. Or even if you like AndroidAuto, I assume it would be better than a non-software company's offering.
Just offer it and if the customer doesn't want to use it, they will not.
Rivians software is quite good. The number of times I've wished it had carplay was low and is now zero that they moved to Google maps instead of their own in the past 6 months (the maps themselves and the interface were totally fine, but traffic prediction and were bad at times). They are fairly good at changing when change is needed.
The latter suggestion is IMHO a really bad idea for companies the size of rivian. it would cost a lot of time and energy to integrate carplay and android auto very very well. Most cars are already a mishmash of software pieces, so replacing 60% of that with a simple carplay integration might buy them a lot. My wife's car is the first model year from that manufacturer with carplay and it's just horribly done. Duplicate voice assistants, and carplay only uses 75% of the screen (this is not fixed by the software changes in ios26 around this. This is the manufacturer not giving a shit) just to start. Despite all that it is still better than the smorgasbord of shit that it is without carplay. That is not true of rivian. It is already good software that is well integrated. if they moved, the same has to remain true. The upfront cost of moving would be large, not provide tons of benefit to existing customers (it's not in the top 5 for most owners), and they aren't large enough to have parallel software teams, so it would slow down development on things owners and near-purchasers care more about.
In the end good product development is at least as much about saying no as it is about saying yes.
saying yes to everything and making them all options does not actually make for good products (or softwaare)
in the end, they seem pretty good about holding themselves accountable to whether they’re succeeding in their various bets or not. and doing something reasonable with that info. As long as they continur that I'm not too worried, because it’ll lead to the CarPlay if it needs to.
> The latter suggestion is IMHO a really bad idea for companies the size of rivian. it would cost a lot of time and energy to integrate carplay and android auto very very well.
This can't possibly be true. CarPlay and Android Auto are just an MPEG video stream to the car's display, plus a simple API to send taps back to the phone. Hell, you can buy a complete CarPlay/AA head unit for $200 at Best Buy.
I mean, if it is true that Rivian can't even grab an OSS video decoder and run it on their system... that makes VW's due-diligence (before throwing billions of dollars at Rivian for software) look very shaky.
The part of CarPlay I’m unhappy with is the (in)ability to plan EV trips with charging stops. Adding charging in a good native nav interface is simple: you enter the route and it picks chargers for you if the distance exceeds current range. In standard CarPlay this doesn’t happen automatically. Presumably it could, but in addition to charging station search and planning, CarPlay would need an interface to take current battery level and some other preferences that would tune the algorithm for specific cars. Not sure if that exists, but the cars I’ve used haven’t exhibited it.
Spotify is the devil. I stream music from my NAS by a Subsonic-compatible server via Wireguard. I'm not going back years in time to connect my phone and control playback via basic Bluetooth like some troglodyte.
Shame Rivian won't be on my list of cars to try due to the lack of Android Auto.
Now, I hope VAG won't carry over the same mistake (actually, I think them trying to use Rivian's software is going to fail spectacularly, and we won't see it happening, but that's for a different discussion).
I’ve had four cars with air play/android auto now… never even tried it,
CarPlay is pretty awful in an Audi. It doesn't connect when you want it to and automatically does things when you don't.
Works pretty well for me across two C8 vehicles. The only complaint I really have is when my wife and I are both in the car and it randomly decides to pick up the non-drivers phone even though the right driver profile is selected.
I have many complaints about the MMI system, but wireless CarPlay isn’t one of them.
I opt for MMI whenever it gives me the option. Much more stable.
What a low value piece of writing. I had to hunt around the episode to find if he describes why, etc, but couldn't be arsed wasting more than a minute of my time.
But, "AI in cars" is interesting. I guess it's already possible to build a clone of the KITT computer from the Knight Rider using LLM. (Is this a millennial reference, or a boomer one?). Although I wonder what features would make it more than a gimmick. Something like, "Michael, that Tesla has been following us for more than 15 miles. I ran the plates and it's..."
What, Gen X isn’t an option?
For electric carmakers that are willing to spend the money on making their built-in system great, I think it's the right decision. The integration with charging status and locations isn't something that Apple or Android offers. Because charging is a different beast than pumping gasoline, it needs to be integrated into the driving experience. Apple Maps doesn't have the vertical integration to know that the Rivan's battery's level of charge and to tell it to start preconditioning the battery to be charged when the vehicle arrives at the charging station, or to even tell the user that they need to charge in order to reach their destination or where the chargers along the way are.
I'll bet Apple would play ball and tell Rivian if the destination is a charger.
That aside, what about safely messaging people, listening to my audiobooks/podcasts in my app of choice, and interacting with the apps and shortcuts on my phone through Siri?
It's the wrong choice IMO.
To be clear, I know Bluetooth audio is available. But having everything on the screen makes it easier.
And you're entitled to your own opinion! It's not about your iPhone telling the vehicle it's going to a charger, but that charging is part of the process. It needs to be baked into the roots of the navigation system. Apple's just not positioned to care enough about that.
I can't speak for Rivan's dev team's plans, but all the big car manufacturers have a voice command feature. How well it works is a different question. Siri is....how do I say this politely. Siri is best used in very specific circumstances for specific tasks. I can't imagine Rivian isn't looking to compete with the features Siri offers in those particular circumstances.
If it were GM or a different legacy automaker we were discussing here, I'd have different things to say, but Rivian isn't one of the big three.
The navigation point is well taken, and I'm not advocating for Rivian to tear that out. I'll use the Rivian stuff when I'm navigating to a charger or doing a road trip.
CarPlay is purely additive.
As much as I complain about all the crap Apple gets wrong, no car manufacturer will beat them on UI or the choice of apps.
> The integration with charging status and locations isn't something that Apple or Android offers.
Er, what? My EV integrates with CarPlay. Apple Maps does route planning (including charging stops) based on the car's current and projected SoC. It even automatically updates the charging plan on the fly if/when conditions change.
CarPlay literally already does all the things you claim it can't do. On cars not built by Rivian, of course.
What car? I’ve tried it with a Honda Prologue and it didn’t do this stuff.
This is long term the right choice. Tesla has the best software competency of any manufacture and if you want to compete with them you can't offload major bits of functionality to a third party. At this point in our software journey in cars, user experience is everything. If I can't have a car that I walk up to with my phone in my pocket and get in and drive, with automatic doors unlocking, and all my settings automatically set to me, then its a net loss.
I can barely get my phone to reliably pair with my Ford, but my Tesla always picks up me as the driver and just does everything correctly. Rivian needs to offer me that same level of polish to be competitive.
Being able to support a virtual QNX session doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.