Porsche has launched an replace to its My Porsche app, permitting better management of car capabilities from inside CarPlay – together with wi-fi CarPlay assist.
We bought an opportunity to check out a few of its options on a 2024 Cayenne, and it’s the primary time we’ve felt an Apple-like expertise from software program made by a conventional automaker.
We’re nonetheless ready for the next-gen CarPlay expertise which Apple introduced final yr, which guarantees better integration with automobile capabilities than at this time’s model of CarPlay.
Within the meantime, although, Porsche has taken it upon itself to construct its personal app which gives the very best of each worlds – a quick, CarPlay-like consumer interface, together with management of some automobile capabilities which had been heretofore unavailable via Apple’s software program.
It did this by constructing a CarPlay module into its My Porsche app, which may entry automobile capabilities like local weather management, seat massagers, and ambient lighting, together with the usual expectations of music, navigation, and so forth. That is known as an “automaker app,” and whereas this functionality has been round for some time, no automakers actually bothered to do it. SEAT gave it a strive, however the effort didn’t develop very far.
The app replace has been out for a couple of week now, however presently is just accessible on the brand new 2024 Porsche Cayenne. Porsche plans to roll it out to different fashions quickly™, however we don’t know but precisely when it’s coming (and it doesn’t sound like it will likely be backwards-compatible with earlier mannequin years). We bought to spend somewhat time enjoying round with it in a brand new Cayenne, and got here away impressed.
Palms-on with the brand new My Porsche CarPlay app
The preliminary setup for the system might be barely simpler, requiring faucets into a number of submenus on each the cellphone and automobile and scanning a QR code, however the entire thing solely took a couple of minute, and also you solely need to do it as soon as anyway:
There are three fundamental screens, with one targeted on music and one targeted on local weather controls by default. However there are additionally customizable “playing cards” which you’ll be able to configure with swipeable informational widgets.
You’ll be able to add playing cards that reside replace and present you climate circumstances, allow you to entry and see the standing of your HomeKit units, or offer you instructions to the closest espresso store, car parking zone or scenic view. You can too have the automobile present you the closest fuel station for those who’re in some kind of uncouth fossil-burner (hey, I’m usually an Electrek author right here, I needed to take at the least one swipe at fuel).
The My Porsche app works with Siri, and Siri integration is sort of simple to arrange as effectively – we set it up with a easy voice command, with out having to open the shortcuts app. Right here we’re utilizing it to vary the ambient lighting:
You can too activate a “Calm down” mode which activates the seat massagers (if geared up) and performs good ambient forest sounds via the audio system (and for those who’re in an EV or PHEV mannequin, the peace received’t be ruined by a rumbling fuel engi…. okay, sorry, Electrek is leaking in once more).
The app remains to be in its early phases, and extra options and tweaks will come over time. However doesn’t really feel prefer it’s incomplete, or a beta check. Whereas we simply had a brief demo and did encounter one or two behaviors that might be improved, its far and away higher than any conventional automotive consumer interface. It simply appears and feels good.
CarPlay has turn into so fashionable – Apple just lately mentioned it’s put in in 98% of latest automobiles within the US (the rest, principally, being Teslas) – as a result of infotainment programs offered by large automakers are, frankly, normally unhealthy. They’re laggy, usually disorganized and/or filled with complicated submenus, and normally have fairly dated interface design. And this appears to be true of just about all of them, save the tech trade upstarts.
After we briefly hopped again into Porsche’s “normal” Porsche Communications Administration (PCM) infotainment system the distinction is evening and day. Buttons have dated click on/pop sound results hooked up, there’s a noticeable but inconsistent delay in reacting to the touch inputs or mentioning a keyboard (this took the higher a part of a second), and sure UI components simply look low-resolution or pixelated.
In brief, the default system looks like a variety of different automotive infotainment programs: not superb. For this reason everybody makes use of CarPlay.
However Porsche’s new My Porsche app replace is nothing like every of that. It truly looks like an Apple product. The interface is clear, with large rounded buttons, nicely-rendered textual content, and snappy response to the touch and swipe gestures (you may see this within the first video above).
And it was all constructed by a comparatively small crew inside Porsche. Spectacular nimbleness for a conventional automaker.
Though, we do want that it was relevant to earlier mannequin years, at the least automobiles within the current previous. Positive, that’s not how the automobile trade normally works, however this can be a software program replace to a cellphone app, it will be good to permit compatibility to the previous few mannequin years of automobiles. Perhaps there’s a technical limitation in there, but it surely doesn’t appear to be it must be not possible (and there may be at the least one competing model that does launch software program updates so as to add options to previous automobiles…).
Porsche says that it plans so as to add extra options over time, with important software program updates each few months. Our Porsche rep reiterated many occasions that Porsche listens to buyer suggestions about these kinds of issues, so for those who’ve bought some concepts, get in contact with Porsche.
What about next-gen CarPlay?
However Porsche additionally at WWDC final yr that it’s going to use Apple’s next-gen CarPlay, which feels like it is going to overlap with most of the capabilities of this My Porsche app. That next-gen replace is meant to roll out later this yr, so there’s a time period the place its rollout will overlap with Porsche’s plans to replace this app and roll it out to extra autos.
Porsche mentioned it in all probability wont instantly undertake next-gen CarPlay, and can take a while to see what capabilities it has and what the response is from prospects. For the subsequent couple years, the main target is on the My Porsche app.
However from our brief demo, we nonetheless suppose these coming years look good. This app is a good first effort from Porsche and we are able to’t wait to see the place it goes from right here.
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