Here is another way to think about it. If you have a family with multiple vehicles, do you really want to fumble around an unfamiliar U/I, or just plug in your device and use your favorite features and apps instantly via Car Play or Android Auto? I rented a car yesterday on a business trip (new model 4 door Toyota thing, which had horrible driver visibility BTW, but I digress). I looked at the buttons and screens and all the possible options with horror, plugged in my phone, found CarPlay & was done... The only thing I used the Toyota U/I for was to CHOOSE MY SOURCE. The point was made earlier that car companies are not great at the things that Apple and Android do for a full-time living, day in and day out with Smartphone consumers. Just think of the U/I and OS battles between those two companies alone, and how many billions have already been spent creating the most intuitive and seamless ways for us to interact with digital content.
Rivian should focus on the best possible electric vehicles, AND allow customers to extend the use of their media, apps, and phones in the most elegant and powerful ways possible. Sure! They can have their own beautiful tiles & widgets on their wide screen display with great features, but give us CHOICE. I will reserve my comment, its likely not a true deal-breaker, but show me what is included in this native Rivian App. Maybe they will surprise and delight us with interesting partnerships w/companies like Waze that will operate inside the Rivian app tile or head-unit flawlessly, who knows. It would be nice to know the actual plan at this point. If you haven't experience how Apple Car Play and Android Auto actually work, its probably hard to understand why this stuff is so important to existing users who take their phone IN and OUT of their cars, and use their phones for business and pleasure. Like I said on another post, we aren't taking the Rivian screen out of the car to make calls, play music, or track our MTB rides... That is a big difference between having a smartphone interface in a car, and relying solely on a Rivian experience. Lets see what we get....