Roger Fingas
Sportscar maker Porsche has announced support for Apple's CarPlay in the 718 Cayman and 718 Cayman S, which are now on sale, but only shipping to dealers in late November.
Unusually, Porsche's announcement makes no reference to Android Auto compatibility, something almost de facto in any 2017-model vehicle also being updated with CarPlay. The latter is bundled with the Connect Plus upgrade module though, which also offers things like Google Earth and Google Street View.
The standard 718 Cayman starts at $53,900, before options and fees, while the S model is $66,300. The latter has a 2.5-liter, 350 horsepower engine, giving it faster acceleration and a higher top speed.
Porsche already offers suport in the 718 Boxster, the 2016 model of the 911, and 2017 Macans.
When CarPlay launched in 2014, luxury vehicles were initially the only ones to have the technology built in, making it inaccessible for most people. The first car, in fact, was the Ferrari FF. Since then Apple and automakers have worked to get the standard into more affordable vehicles from companies like Ford, Honda, Kia, and Chevrolet.
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7 Comments
Got CarPlay on my '16 Golf GTI. I find it to be okay, feels half-baked with plenty of room for improvement, especially in Maps and iMessage. CarPlay apps are also seriously lacking with almost all being just generic music apps, for example where is Waze?
Where can one find a credible, updated list of which makes and models have CarPlay integration?
AI, it would be a useful service to your readership to provide a link to such a list (if it exists), or to create one (if it does not).
Well, for once Porsche vehicle development is (luckily) more focused on the non-autonomous driving part than infotainment systems or else, and I certainly prefer it that way. Nevertheless it's desirable to be somewhere close to state-of-the-art with regards to these systems, however what Porsche does is to have a single platform for all their models.
The latest version of this "Porsche Communication Management" (PCM) platform features Apple Carplay and came to the facelifted 911 last fall. Since, it's been launched on the new Boxster model, now the Cayman as well. If it isn't already (haven't checked), it'll be in the Macan, Cayenne and Panamera, and it'll have the same feature set across the line, so there isn't much of a newsworthy announcement here at all.
Same is true for the non-support of Android Auto. It's not that it's not mentioned in this Cayman specific announcement, Android Auto is simply not part of that PCM version, therefore it's not available on any model. When the new platform came to the 911, Porsche explained that they would not support Android Auto for the time being due to Google's contractual requirements for the use of the technology including having to provide access to certain vehicle data to Google, see http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/6/9460471/porsche-911-carrera-apple-carplay-google-android-auto or similar reports.
This is truly important. Carmakers with a reputation should stand up and protect customers from the data-hungry behavior of Internet companies. As we all know, given it's business model, Apple is on the slightly "better" side of that wall for the time being, and hope it remains like this, which is what Porsche recognized with their decision. Thanks, Tim!