While CarPlay is now widely available on most cars, Rivian has been one of the biggest holdouts (alongside Tesla and now GM). In a new interview this week on the Decoder podcast, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe explained why the company doesn’t support CarPlay, while also touting its “really good relationship with the Apple team.”
Will Rivian ever support CarPlay?
Regarding the lack of CarPlay on Rivian, Scaringe explained that the company’s goal is to “create a pure product experience.” Scaringe specifically points to the user experience when someone uses CarPlay, but then needs to open the front trunk and is forced to exit CarPlay to do so:
“We embraced the idea that the digital experience in the vehicle should be consistent and seamless across every touchpoint. To do that, we decided not to let customers enter or exit an app that we don’t control and that doesn’t have deep capabilities to leverage other parts of the vehicle experience. For example, if you’re in CarPlay and want to open the front trunk, you have to exit the app and go to another interface.
This is not consistent with how we think about creating a true product experience.”
While Rivian doesn’t support CarPlay, Scaringe adds that the company is focused on adding “desired features in CarPlay a la carte.” That includes Apple Music, which Rivian officially announced support for (along with Spatial Audio) last month:
“To deliver the features that you want in CarPlay, we’re starting to do that, but a la carte. So we’re launching Apple Music in the vehicle. We have a great relationship with the Apple team. It’s a partnership with Dolby Atmos.”
At the same time, Scaringe seems aware of complaints from Rivian drivers about the implementation of the proprietary software, particularly regarding mapping. It’s an issue the company is working to address, he says.
“I think the biggest complaint today about the lack of CarPlay is the improvements that we need to make to mapping, which are coming. But again, even in mapping, we want to be able to select the route separately, select the base maps separately, select the points of interest separately, overlay that with the charging route, which is really important and very specific to the vehicle itself and very specific to the networks and the notes on those networks, which we bought a route planning company to support that. We just think it’s such an important piece of real estate, the digital ecosystem, that it’s something that we want to keep.”
We realize it will take time to fully exploit all the features of CarPlay. I hope customers realize that. And I think it often gets more hype than it deserves.
The other thing that’s coming, beyond mapping, is better integration with SMS. And we know that needs to happen. And that’s something that the teams are actively working on.”
According to Scaringe, Rivian using CarPlay would be like Apple using standard Windows software instead of developing macOS and iOS. So while Rivian and Apple “have a great relationship,” don’t expect CarPlay to ever be available on Rivian cars:
“We have a great relationship with Apple. I think it’s the absolute world of their products. If I put myself in Apple’s shoes, imagine Apple develops a Mac and someone has a software application, maybe let’s call it Windows.
And they said, “We have a turnkey platform that everybody knows how to use.” Would they have put that in their car? Would they have developed their own iOS?
We know how that happened. So while I love their products a lot, there’s a reason that ironically is very consistent with Apple’s ethos why we want to control the ecosystem.
You can listen to the full interview on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
9to5Mac’s review
While I’m on the “every carmaker should support CarPlay” team, I have to admit that Scaringe seems to be far more aware of the features people want than other CarPlay holdouts. The way Scaringe talks at least suggests that Rivian’s lack of CarPlay support isn’t just a subscription issue.
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