Jess Weatherbed, writing at The Verge:
CarPlay isn’t “consistent with how we think about really creating a pure product experience,” Scaringe said.
Then I guess I'm out. I was hoping they'd come around by the time the R2 and R3 were released, but this seems definitive that they have made up their minds. I won't buy a vehicle that doesn't have CarPlay support.
"We recognize that it’ll take us time to fully capture every feature that’s in CarPlay, and hopefully, customers are seeing that. I think it often gets more noise than it deserves,” Scaringe said in the interview."
It's not about just features! I believe that it's possible for Rivian to have a good user experience on its screens; I haven't used it, but it generally seems well-regarded. But it can't ever support the apps I want to use without essentially being an iOS device. I user Overcast for podcasts, GaiaGPS and OnX for some navigation, among many other apps that just will not be on the Rivian. And sure, they might make a decent podcast app someday, but I'm not going to use theirs in that car and another everywhere else.
Too bad, too: I love the look of the R2 and R3, and have a deposit down. I'll leave it with them, in case they get enough pushback to change their mind before those come out, but I'll cancel if they don't.
Rivian CEO says CarPlay isn’t going to happen
CEO RJ Scaringe compared it to Apple using Windows.