The Case for Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Even if Rivian Doesn’t Want It

Rivian has been pretty clear from day one: they’re not planning to support Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Their position? The in-vehicle experience is better when it’s built from the ground up, not handed off to third-party software. And honestly, there’s some truth to that. The UI is sleek, the native nav is solid, and Spotify, TuneIn, and Alexa are all well integrated. But even with all that, there’s still a strong case for CarPlay and Android Auto, especially the wireless versions.

Let’s be real. For a lot of drivers, phone projection isn’t just about familiarity. It’s about convenience. Being able to jump in your vehicle and immediately have your music, messages, and maps from your phone show up, wirelessly, is something that feels seamless and smart. And in 2025, it’s no longer a premium feature; it’s a baseline expectation. Even base trims of Hyundai and Kia EVs come with it. Heck, some golf carts support CarPlay now.

The truth is, Rivian’s native apps work well until they don’t. Navigation can’t always match the precision or feature set of Google Maps or Waze. Apple Music was something I was super excited for personally, but it rarely works.

And here’s the kicker: this isn’t about throwing out Rivian’s UI. It’s about choice. Let users toggle it off if they don’t want it. Let them launch CarPlay in a separate “pane” if needed. Plenty of other manufacturers have figured out how to gracefully integrate it without it taking over the vehicle’s identity.

Rivian’s software is good. But pretending that CarPlay or Android Auto would somehow dilute the experience or make things worse feels out of step with what modern EV buyers expect.

The good news? With Rivian’s over-the-air update architecture, it’s not too late. Adding support down the line is possible. Whether they’ll ever change their mind is another story, but if they do, it won’t be because their UI wasn’t good enough. It’ll be because their users wanted a choice.

Would you use wireless Apple CarPlay or Android Auto if Rivian added it? Drop a comment below and let us know where you stand.

28 Comments

  1. It would be nice for my Apple Music playlists to have the ability to be refreshed. Having kids with a family-shared playlist is tough in its current form in my R1S. If I want the ability to play those newly added songs I have to be in park, sign out of Apple Music, sign back in and wait for it to populate my account. All for a handful of songs to appear in my car. I love a lot about the system but there is plenty that could be resolved by allowing CarPlay!

  2. It sure seems like it would save a significant amount of R&D, development, and manpower on their software team to adopt these platforms as an alternative tab on the infotainment screen. I just don’t understand the insistence on some manufacturers to intentionally keep it out of their vehicles. There must be a reason that’s deeper than “everything is smoother when we build it in-house”.

    • One of the other reasons for not wanting it in Rivians has to do with control over the vehicle, especially with the latest version of Carplay/Auto. Changing the HVAC system and being able to show speedometer and change other displays and metrics is likely something Rivian (and other manufacturers) don’t want to hand over to another company. It would likely slow down their update process also because everything would likely have to be vetted through Apple and Google to make changes if they are likely to affect phones and their connections. I’m sure there are other reasons also with licensing and I’m sure money is involved. I own a Rivian but I used to sell GM vehicles and these were some of the reasons our regional manager mentioned during training when we first found out Carplay wasn’t going to be in some of the electric vehicles.

    • It won’t save development time on anything – it will make it worse. When you jump into supporting something like CarPlay / AA, your testing for each release explodes. You need to purchase a bunch of phones. You need a way to automate installing various versions of iOS/Android on those phone. Then you need to integrate that entire testing platform into your current testing framework. And you need to run these tests for every release. Oh, and every major iOS/Android update is going to break stuff in fantastic ways, that’s going to delay the release of your new software, that has nothing to do with iOS/Android. Oh, and then you constantly need to buy newer phones too – newer chips, features of phones, etc.

      I’d much rather Rivian spend time adding new features / apps to their stack (voice to text / text to voice for messaging, real Amazon music interface, Waze integration, etc) then integrate with CarPlay/AA.

      My bias: Gen 1 R1S quad owner. 30 year software developer with 5+ of that on both android and iOS.

      • I disagree. They are wasting even more resources to get the apps people want to be integrated into Rivian software platform and continuously keep them up to date. It’s much simpler to just support a common interface that’s CarPlay. That’s separation of concerns.

  3. 100% – give me the choice. No native podcasts if you don’t use Spotify. And BT audio leaves so much to be desired.

  4. Imagine you buy a beautiful 85” 8K OLED smart TV that doesn’t support Fire TV, Chrome TV or Apple TV. Case closed.

  5. Agree 100%! Choice is a big value adid and I would rather their development teams focus on improving the overall car experience and performance. The monthly updates are meager when it comes to entertainment and I’m seeing more coming to Gen2 and eventually R2S which will take even more resources away. I recall reading that the platform will allow more options etc. When? Having the option would help pacify the early adopters to Gen 1. I’m surprised to be in June and still only have the YouTube app and Chromecast option.

  6. What’s interesting is that Volkswagen Group is going all-in on CarPlay Ultra on some upcoming Porsches and Audis. Yet for their future EVs they’re going with Rivian software.

    • That’s to be seen. Audi just dropped out. Porsche seems to still be planning to support it but Mercedes, Volvo, and Renault also just cancelled support along with Audi.

  7. All this is valid, but the biggest reason for Rivian to open up to CarPlay is the Apple App Store. Rivian’s bespoke development team will NEVER be able to deliver native seamless apps for every service out there people want to use.

    Either give us CarPlay/android auto so we can use the apps and services we want, bring on the google play store like other auto software powered by android have done, or open your own App Store and get another revenue stream like Apple discovered with the original iPhone.

    Just open the platform up for customers to use the apps and services they want to use.

  8. Absolutely my biggest complaint about Bezos Alexa monopoly over Rivian. I just want to hop in and have Android Auto flawless navigation and traffic and my Spotify the way I like it.

  9. 100% would love the option to have Android Auto, but if they would at least include apps such as YouTube Music in the native UI it make it less of an issue for me.

  10. Telematics are mainly why manufacturers are avoiding 3rd party solutions. Rivian desires to be as vertically integrated as possible and giving screen input data to someone else runs contrary to that goal.

  11. Contrary to article, Rivian software is not good. There are significant, glaring bugs, but mainly it’s the 3 second delay in switching apps in my Gen 2 that is most unacceptable. Frankly the half second delay in window switches, door handles and center console is unacceptable as well.

  12. Do you like bugs? Because that’s what you get when Rivian adds new features. Just when I thought everything in our gen 1 R1S finally started to be solid and weeks went by since I had to hard reboot the system, Rivian adds that fancy energy app….and breaks Apple Music. It’s basically been unusable since, no amount of logging out, rebooting, logging in, toggling the hot spot, etc…will fix it. I don’t need or want CarPlay/AA, I want to just get in and drive and have the infotainment screen to just work without any lag and for the music apps that are there to just work. I can’t imagine what will break if they drop a huge thing like CP/AA into the system…

  13. 100% give me the choice! And with that choice I would use the hell out of Carplay…. I miss having whats on my phone, just on the screen. please, please, please!

  14. Remember, a lot of this is about data sharing. Apple requires it and Rivian probably doesn’t want to give it up. Hence one of the main reasons why they haven’t done it b

  15. In the minority but I don’t mind the Rivian UI and don’t miss Android Auto as a whole. I just miss the features
    1- Navigation – POI, Traffic Accuracy, Ease of rerouting, traffic delay in minutes
    2 – Messaging!! This is the only thing I really want, just to be able to get and reply to messages
    3- nice to have would be Weather and Calendar integration

    Other than that I prefer the integration of Rivians UI. I would not want to use Google Maps for charging locations and route planning. The Rivian UI is better for this.

  16. The end goal is automakers recognize the need for recurrent and post-sales revenue & margin. By owning the platform, they can start pay walling services and boil the frog to microtransactions and subscriptions. If they don’t own the platform, they can’t do that – they’d be giving the customer an exit to another platform that avoids their tolls is perilous to Rivian.

    See: Exactly what iOS did and Epics lawsuits, etc.

  17. Thanx Jose for this article. It is a hot topic for car platforms but especially so for a mfg that is getting so many updates per year. Key items:
    – It is a choice to use AA/CP. If users don’t want it, don’t use it and no issues moving forward
    – Users find more useful apps than the limited integration apps.
    – Users spend more time on their device per day then in their car per week.
    – API integration is decades old technology that old waterfall auto stacks had years ago without any further development time.
    – Not every level of AA/CP has to be ULTRA, start small and maybe be small. But start nevertheless.

  18. I love my R1S, but I have to mount my phone on the dash using a wonky accessory just so I can use Waze. It’s ridiculous. If they won’t give me CarPlay, they need to give me best in class navigation…and that’s something they can’t build in house. Waze integration should be a no brainer.

  19. Get over it. I don’t miss Android Auto one but. Rivian is correct not to incumber it’s software stack with Car Play or Android Auto. Inclusion would introduce variables that could cause all kinds of unexpected problems. There seems to be heavy addiction to the Apple ecosystem by many. Let it go. There’s a great world outside of Apple’s garden gates. Embrace it. Drive well.

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