> "The challenge with screen mirroring solutions is that they take over every single pixel in the car,"

This is not true. There are many brands that offer CarPlay in a window with the manufacturer's own interface around the CarPlay interface.

> Rivian's internal statistics showed that more than 70% of customers wanted CarPlay when their vehicles first launched around five years ago, but he said a recent survey showed that figure is apparently less than 25% now.

It'd be interesting to know how many of the 70% customers who initially wanted CarPlay are still driving a Rivian. I was one of them who was asking for CarPlay and now I longer drive a Rivian.

> He believes that Rivian owners will be able to access the core functionality of many apps through an AI agent, rather than needing to rely on CarPlay or Android Auto

I definitely don’t want that.

I also sense lack of imagination. There’s no way Rivian will build native apps for everything I use CarPlay for. They might be able to create a passable maps and music app, but I can’t imagine it surpassing what already exists on most phones.

For all those apps, sign in on your car? Every time you start it, otherwise your teenagers use your accounts? Not appealing.

Would have per-driver accounts like Tesla, right? (Privacy nightmare when thinking of every car someday requiring logins—very convenient! though)

Could be done, but either PITA or privacy nightmare or both. Key fob isn't your token, needs to be something else. Your fingerprint? And it won't be using your apple apps, no way apple lets those just show up.

Translation: we want to be able to sell your data rather than let Apple have it.