Went to Porsche Centre Brisbane yesterday for the release of the 911 Series 2 to specifically have a play with CarPlay; it's standard on Australian 911's, $1090 Connect Plus option on Macans and 718s. Here's my thoughts.
TL DR
If you have an iPhone and want the extra level of integration I think it's worth the money.
First up it requires a Lightning/USB cable connection, which is under the centre armrest. Plug your iPhone in and the PCM asks if you want to use it in iPod or CarPlay mode. Chose CarPlay and the CarPlay button appears bottom right on the PCM screen (
http://steeringnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2016-Porsche-911-Carrera-PCM-7-inch-screen.jpg). Touch it and you then see the standard Apple CarPlay interface. The car didn't lock my iPhone screen like some other manufactures do.
The new PCM. It has a frameless glass screen with an anti-reflective coating and thus capacitive, but it's no bigger than the previous PCM screen. The graphics and fonts look cleaner, and just like the previous PCM you don't have to use the touch screen; you can operate it 100% with the buttons and knobs, this also applies to CarPlay.
Now CarPlay. First thing I noticed was the sidebar was on the right. In this screenshot it's on the left (
http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2014/03/carplay_3.jpg?retina); I guess this is because all the screenshots on the web are from lefthand drive cars. The sidebar displays, from top to bottom: time, signal strength, cell connection type, Home button.
If you chose to flip your signal strength from dots to numbers (
http://cdn.redmondpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/iPhone-Signal-Strength.png) then you'll see the numbers in the sidebar also. If you don't have a cell connection then nothing will be displayed in this spot in the sidebar.
In this screenshot (
http://c.mobilegeeks.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/porsche-911-carplay.jpg) you can see the Porsche icon. Tapping it, or using the right knob to trigger it, will return you to the PCM menu (
http://steeringnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2016-Porsche-911-Carrera-PCM-7-inch-screen.jpg).
On my iPhone I had four third party apps show up on the second screen; Downcast, Overcast, Spotify, and Pandora. All these, and the standard Apple apps performed flawlessly, and navigating any app was easier, for me, using the rotary knob than touching the screen - I'm of the opinion that without tactile feedback you aren't as accurate when you are meant to be concentrating on driving. It is easy to tap and swipe; scrolling is smooth and response is instant. The only downside is you can't pinch to zoom in Maps, I guess Porsche haven't implemented multitouch or Apple haven't enabled it in the specification, but there are + & - buttons to zoom in and out. Maps also has 3D and locate me buttons.
The best way to think of CarPlay is it's a projected display of your iPhone. Things are bigger, and theoretically, easier to use by removing complexity. An example, trigger the Phone app and Siri is activated, if you have an Internet connection, otherwise Siri lets you know you don't. Without Siri you can still navigate your favourites, recents, and contacts lists as well as the keypad and voicemail (
http://b.cdnbrm.com/images/prm/home...TouchClarity/images/articles/mobile-electronics/carplay/apple-carplay-phone.jpg).
I love my music so I have about 5000 songs on my iPhone; I've also filled my Macan's Jukebox (seriously, who thinks 40GB is enough space!); and I also have a 2006 80GB iPod (7000 odd songs) plugged in pretty well permanently. The CarPlay Music app is easier to use than my Macan's PCM, except music wouldn't restart after something else needed to make sound, like Siri. I didn't test any of my three podcast, or the other two music apps, for this issue but I assume they would have the same failure to restart issue. This is Apple's problem.
I'm sure it would take me many hours of use to actually find more niggles, like it did with my Macan's PCM, but it is an improvement and if Apple puts more effort into CarPlay them we get those changes for free.
Those who complain about what apps are/aren't available, well that's on Apple and third party developers. At this point in time I give Porsche five stars for its implementation.
Used in the above review was a 2014 iPhone 6 64GB running iOS 9.2.1 and a non-Apple Ligthning/USB cable.