Getting it
You need to have PCM4 and have had it updated via a recall if you don't have it already.
You then need to get registered. It should be an automatic process, but if not, see first post on this thread. Porsche Connect registration issues solved
Functionality restored
When my PCM4 was updated, all the over-the-air updates stopped working. Now I'm registered/active with Porsche Connect, these features are back.
Map updates online
For me, this was the best part of 1.2GB and a little over an hour.
Interestingly, you can go back again and see that you are up-to-date. This is very good for me, as I get annoyed when something isn't working as expected and not telling you why or giving any kind of status.
It looks like if you "Select further countries" you can manually pick other places for which to download updates. Nice.
Now yesterday, I had maps/POIs updates, so was disappointed to see that it still doesn't know where Porsche East London moved to about two years ago.
Fuel prices and station locator
This seems like a good thing. Sure, the car had a "search for nearest petrol station" option before, but this one has a nice list and prices.
Unfortunately, the prices are shown for crappy 95RON fuel. Maybe it's configurable somewhere? Hopefully it would show diesel fuel prices in an SD.
Fortunately, if you tap a station, it does show 98RON prices too, but still...
Logging in for configured services
For some services, like online POIs, you need to log in.
This initially requires the use of a PIN, but then you can do it automatically if your phone is detected via Bluetooth. All good, you wouldn't want to save the PIN in the PCM as there could be some security compromise.
But, if you are also using CarPlay, Bluetooth is disabled.
Poor design decision here, so on a couple of occasions, I've just asked Siri for nearest fuel, prices, and other stuff that Porsche Connect offers, and it does it better in most cases.
Online POI workflow
The Porsche Connect website looks like it was designed by a 5 year old who's only vaguely heard of UX. So you won't spend much time there adding POIs.
OK, so you can enable your car in Google Maps Send to device feature. This is nicer, but only seems to work on web-based Google Maps, so not easy to do it on your phone (yes, there's still ye olde PCM Connect app too).
Then when you are in the car, these POIs are quite hard to find - tucked away in a submenu of a submenu of the Nav and Fav areas in the PCM. These should really be front-and-centre in the Apps section, I think.
Again, CarPlay (and Android Auto in other vehicles) puts this to shame.
It doesn't help that Google Maps on the web has really gone down hill over the years and is not at all an easy place to plan trips.
