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I am beyond excited that now I have full screen Apple CarPlay on my 971 Panamera with PCM 5.0!! Full screen Apply CarPlay is so much nicer than the awful ⅔ screen CarPlay my Pana came with. And I've done this without some random guy remote control into my laptop and "hack" into the PCM. I had this update done about 1 month ago and so far everything is working smoothly! The entire process took less than 10mins!
Here's how I did it...
Tools needed: a USB type A thumb driver (to be plugged into the USB port in the center console) Info needed: my VIN number
Here we go! So I have a friend of mine who figured out how to "unlock" the full screen feature of Porsche PCM and the process is quite simple. I gave him my VIN number and he send me a folder containing couple of files. Then I copied the files onto the USB thumb drive and plugged it into USB port in my Panorama's center console. See files he sent me below.
I turned on the ignition, then hold down the round map zoom **** and the "MEDIA" button in that order for 5 sec to access the PCM engineering mode. There's an option now for "Software Download" and on the next screen PCM would allow me to select USB. You can test this out on your own.
Following the promo, I clicked "Start update". Initially, an error message appeared saying the update has failed that I was told that was normal and I clicked "Cancel Update". Then PCM will reboot again but this time no more error message!
This time, PCM will actually update! It took about 3-5 minute for the software to complete its update and the PCM will reboot two times in the meanwhile.
When PCM reboot itself one last time after the update is completed, it will return to the normal user mode. And when I connected my phone to Apple CarPlay, the magic happened!
Couple of final thoughts...
1) I think my friend's file was able to update the PCM firmware to "unlock" the full screen feature of CarPlay but you Panamera needs to come with CarPlay from the factory.
2) It should work with PCM 5.0 and prior systems even on Cayenne, Macan, 718 and 911s.
3) Ever file is linked to the vehicle VIN number and can only be used on that VIN.
4) It will NOT enable wireless Apple CarPlay since the factor PCM doesn't come with the wireless hardware. Just get a wireless dongle on Amazon and you should be happy.
5) Best part is I did everything on my own (besides getting the file from my friend) and the entire process took me less than 10min after I copied the files onto my thumb drive.
If anyone is interested, maybe I can ask my friend to become a vendor on Rennlist and provide his service. Let me know in the comments below.
Hi all, I will ask my friend what models he can support. He's asking $200 for his time he has put in for the coding work. Will PM ya all once I get a reply back!
I recently upgraded to the full screen through the Innovative Soft who is a preferred Rennlist vendor and the experience was great. I originally looked into seeing if could do it myself and it's not as straight forward as getting a copy of the install files and remoting into your computer to install. Each install package is customized specifically to the car and requires (haven't confirmed) specific tooling to complete. Raymond on the other hand is great and more than happy to answer any questions you may have about the process. Posted his site below.
I am beyond excited that now I have full screen Apple CarPlay on my 971 Panamera with PCM 5.0!! Full screen Apply CarPlay is so much nicer than the awful ⅔ screen CarPlay my Pana came with. And I've done this without some random guy remote control into my laptop and "hack" into the PCM. I had this update done about 1 month ago and so far everything is working smoothly! The entire process took less than 10mins!
Here's how I did it...
Tools needed: a USB type A thumb driver (to be plugged into the USB port in the center console) Info needed: my VIN number
Here we go! So I have a friend of mine who figured out how to "unlock" the full screen feature of Porsche PCM and the process is quite simple. I gave him my VIN number and he send me a folder containing couple of files. Then I copied the files onto the USB thumb drive and plugged it into USB port in my Panorama's center console. See files he sent me below.
I turned on the ignition, then hold down the round map zoom **** and the "MEDIA" button in that order for 5 sec to access the PCM engineering mode. There's an option now for "Software Download" and on the next screen PCM would allow me to select USB. You can test this out on your own.
Following the promo, I clicked "Start update". Initially, an error message appeared saying the update has failed that I was told that was normal and I clicked "Cancel Update". Then PCM will reboot again but this time no more error message!
This time, PCM will actually update! It took about 3-5 minute for the software to complete its update and the PCM will reboot two times in the meanwhile.
When PCM reboot itself one last time after the update is completed, it will return to the normal user mode. And when I connected my phone to Apple CarPlay, the magic happened!
Couple of final thoughts...
1) I think my friend's file was able to update the PCM firmware to "unlock" the full screen feature of CarPlay but you Panamera needs to come with CarPlay from the factory.
2) It should work with PCM 5.0 and prior systems even on Cayenne, Macan, 718 and 911s.
3) Ever file is linked to the vehicle VIN number and can only be used on that VIN.
4) It will NOT enable wireless Apple CarPlay since the factor PCM doesn't come with the wireless hardware. Just get a wireless dongle on Amazon and you should be happy.
5) Best part is I did everything on my own (besides getting the file from my friend) and the entire process took me less than 10min after I copied the files onto my thumb drive.
If anyone is interested, maybe I can ask my friend to become a vendor on Rennlist and provide his service. Let me know in the comments below.
07-28-2023, 09:40 PM
How I enabled full screen Apple CarPlay on my own
Very interesting
you said some random guy "hacking" with a laptop. The random guys use a SD card instead of a USB stick. You are doing the same thing.
