I hear this a lot and it's surprising to me. We have three cars in our family (two with carplay and the Rivian) and carplay always feels like such a downgraded experience compared to that of the Rivian.
I've been using car play for the better part of the past decade and don't know what it looks like in vehicles without it.
It’s the reason I always seek out CarPlay and why Tesla has reportedly decided it’s worth adding CarPlay to capture people like me.
I would expect you can still skip forward and back, and read titles. So as long as you start before you drive you might be gucci?
But that is all, no playlists control.