I didn't get to drive the new car this week, so spent time reading the manual and writing down a load of things that I could check on a drive this morning.
This is PCM4 on a Turbo, so comes with the navigation thingy but I also added Connect Plus. I'm not sure where the option boundaries sit, but here we go. BOSE is standard on the Turbo. My previous car has Burmester.
Some random pics to go with this here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/goron/albums/72157666286408513
Here we go.
Basic media stuff
- You can plug in 2 SD cards and a USB stick and all three appear on the media source screen and you can switch between them.
- You can play DVDs. OK, maybe obvious to some, but you couldn't on the old PCM. I sat in Sainsbury's carpark for 10 mins watching bits of Star Wars IV :-)
- You can play DVD Audio, but there's no evidence that it's playing the DVD-A tracks like it did on the older PCM/Burm.
- You can play video files. I was trying H.264/AAC videos just fine. There will be others.
- When you start moving, the screen is blanked and a "message saying no video car is moving" appears.
- You can play FLAC files! Woohoo!
Built-in navigation, no data connection
- You have free text search for destinations. You can enter roads, postcodes, details from any synchronised phone book or saved POIs. Basically, you don't need to know what type of thing you are searching on. Just type away.
- Curiously, the search results come back somewhat slowly, but finding local things (it defaults to your current 'city') first.
- No internet search, obviously.
- The maps display is excellent. I like to keep it on 2D top down mode, but the display is still actually 3D with buildings, and when you come to junctions, it smoothly zooms in, so you don't get any jarring transitions. Ditto when you get popups for junctions, or instructions, or phone calls or whatever. It's really very good.
- Voice search. I find it a bit rubbish. In all the times I tried, I gave up and resorted to manual entry. I think the knack is knowing what it will understand.
- Handwriting entry. I'm right handed, so it sucks.
- Guidance voice. Maybe a little huskier than the PCM3.5 voice. We now have to "drive left" instead of "keep left."
- Instructions are good and clear. I opt for popups for guidance points, so there's some redundancy of information. Eg, with the north-up 2D view I prefer, at a junction, it will zoom in and spin the map, popup a junction diagram, moving the map centre over a bit and the voice will tell you what's what. The MFD shows similar information as usual.
Built-in navigation, WITH data connection
- OK, so more on data connections later, but this is the same whether you are tethered to a phone or have a SIM inserted.
- You get an extra Online Search field on the navigation screen. Again, you can type in pretty much anything here, but it uses Google to search for stuff. If it finds stuff with an address, you can navigate to it.
- Anything you find can be saved as favourite so you don't need data next time to find it.
- On the map screen, when you choose layers, you now have Google Earth as option. The first time you choose this it takes a good minute or more to start/load and finally display the satellite imagery. I'm not sure how useful this is as it make the display a bit busy.
- You also can add real-time traffic.
- Street view is available from the map. It's ok. Probably quite handy, but I generally use this way before I ever get in the car.
- If you have the PCM Connect app on your phone, any POIs will be transferred to the car. See data stuff below.
Data Connection - SIM vs tether
- There are two ways to get a data connection, with a SIM, or by tethering to your phone. I tried both,
- When you plug in a SIM, the PCM lets you activate a connection from a choice of APNs.. I was offered EE and T-Mobile, and picked EE. My SIM is a data-SIM on my existing EE account.
- The alternative is to set your phone up as a WiFi hotspot (personal hotspot on iPhone) and have the PCM connect to it
- With a SIM, the car can present the mobile connection (up to LTE) with a car WiFi hotspot.
- With a SIM, the car remembers the connection details and provided car WiFi hotspot, even after shutting down the car, going away and coming back later. With tethering, I found the car did not do this, plus you've got to remember to put the phone in hotspot mode.
- The PCM Connect app on your phone will connect and sync with the car either by the phone connecting to the car's hotspot, or by the car connecting to the phone's hotspot.
- Something to note. The car's WiFi hotspot is shutdown when the ignition is off. Sounds obvious? Maybe, but you'd hope it stayed on for a bit. Eg, when you're at a petrol station, your passengers will lose their connections.
- A note on performance. In a Sainsbury's carpark, my phone achieved 147mbit/s, but the car, with the same network only managed 9mbit/s. Certainly not bad, but the iPhone (6S+ in my case) has considerably better radios. On the other hand, in my garage at home, my phone can't get a signal, but the car could.
Car Play
I was prepared to be disappointed by this, from what I've heard generally, and from reading Luke's excellent review elsewhere on these forums. The disappointment didn't disappoint!
There's plenty of information out there, so I'll focus on some points that weren't completely clear to me.
- When you plug in a phone via the USB cable (iPhone 6S+, iOS9.x for my tests) you are asked whether you want iPod mode or Car Play mode. Generally, if you don't do Apple Music streaming, iPod is probably fine. You can also stream over bluetooth if that's your bag. Once connected as iPod or Car Play, it's easy to switch over by bringing up the connections screen.
- Bluetooth phone connection is disconnected when you are in Car Play mode and all normal car phone features are disabled: phone button on PCM panel, buttons on steering wheel etc. Car Play completely takes over phone features.
- Having said that, phone support via Car Play interface is pretty good. Full access to your phone book, phone features from POIs, sending and receiving text messages (via Siri, writing/reading).
- Siri access comes from long-pushing the voice button on the indicator stalk.
- It's been mentioned that the display is lower resolution than the natural PCM display, but I don't think this is the case. It's just that Apple is using a softer anti-aliasing and much larger text and icons. Imagery is actually quite sharp. Generally though the effect is less information on the same screen.
- If your phone is connected to the car's WiFi hotspot, Car Play will use it. Big deal? Maybe if you use a SIM in the car on a different contract to your phone and for some reason thought it'll use your phone's cell connection.
Car Play Music
- If you use Apple Music subscription service, this is catered for very well. It was updated recently and there's every chance it will improve over time. Accessing For You, streaming and local playlists, Radio, etc. If you don't use Apple Music subscription service, there's not much here over and above bluetooth streaming or basic iPod mode.
- Standard PCM media controls have no effect (apart from volume).
- Using the touch screen instead of real buttons quickly became a pain in the arse. It's distracting as there's no physical button to provide feedback. Siri control is not bad, bot not perfect. A number of times a Siri initiated instruction needed a button push to complete.
Car Play Navigation (Apple Maps)
Well, I'll start by saying I don't think it's anywhere near as good as the built-in navigation feature. However:
- Some conveniences, like if you start the navigation on your phone before you get in the car, then connect, it just carries on. And continues at the other end too, e.g. directions on foot. I can see this being handy and a little easier than using the PCM Connect app on the phone to load up POIs/destinations. Time will tell whether this is enough for me to want to actually use Car Play navigation though.
- The map visual elements are larger than Porsche navigation elements. Text, POIs, simples, roads, etc. Also the guidance panel takes up about a third of the display, permanently. Sure you can remove it, but then it seems to stop offering guidance.
- Zoom is not done with the PCM wheel. Manipulating the map is fiddly.
- In tunnels, the map doesn't follow where you are properly, but does rotate the map. It's a bit disconcerting, especially if you have the proper Porsche map on the MFD.
- Odd because it does use car positioning system apparently, not the phone's.
- Contacts, POIs, saved destinations, etc, are all from the phone. If you set up some native POIs, you won't have access to them from Car Play.
- Siri use to find things is not too bad. Ditto, text entry. Similar to the data-enabled Google search in native navigation.
Car Play bugs and annoyances
Worthy of a separate section!
- A number of times, Car Play has supposedly been playing music, but actually, it's playing something from the PCM jukebox. Pressing stop and play again in Car Play fixes it.
- A number of times, a Siri conversation has resulted in Car Play just stopping (crashing?) and returning to the PCM home screen. Not cool.
- No support for wheel phone buttons. That's so annoying. You have to tap the touch screen to answer incoming calls. These sort of distractions should not exist.
- Park Assist doesn't not always kick in when Car Play is active. You do get the beeps (nice) but the display doesn't switch to the cameras (not nice). When you push the Car button, you see the Park Assist camera display active, but without the visual distance cues, so you have to tap the screen to get it back. Again, an annoying distraction.
- If you pick up your connected phone and try to use it, the Car Play display blanks. Annoying, say, if your passenger needs to look something up whilst you are navigating a complex set of junctions.
Summary
- Sorry this is so long :)
- Even though I'm an Apple Music subscriber, I still probably won't use the Car Play stuff.
- A dedicated SIM makes things ever so slightly easier than tethering.
- A data connection is needed for online traffic data.
- You must choose between bluetooth phone and Car Play phone.
- I can't see Car Play generally improving with software updates unless Apple changes track and allows theming and deeper integration.
