Apple & Porsche

Macan Turbo , 2024, Porsche AG

I kind of figured there was something a little more going on when Porsche appeared in 2 Apple videos with Tim Cook himself appearing last spring in the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT reveal(see previous post below this one). According to German language publication Derstandard(translation from Safari web translate below), 

 “In fact, Porsche strives for an even closer cooperation with Apple to enable its customers to seamlessly connect to their usual digital environment such as iPhones and iPads. This initially makes Porsche a particularly important customer for Apple’s new car software Carplay Plus, which should enable a deeper interlocking of Apple devices with the vehicle software and thus promises to significantly improve the user experience.”

Also from the same Derstandard article a link to another German language article from Manager Magazin(full article behind paywall, also translated via Safari web translate) that the electric Cayenne planned for 2026 will be the first such collaboration.

Porsche and Apple have been partners in various apps and Apple services for some time now. It seems that this is the next natural progression for both companies. Apple Fellow Phil Schiller and SVP Eddie Cue are notable car enthusiasts and this is probably the next best thing moving on from the cancelled Project Titan Apple car project. 

If this all does come to fruition I’m sure we will see some unique marketing strategies, maybe the 2026 iPhone colors matching with the available Porsche paint colors, interior upgrades etc. Honestly they could go very deep.  Seems like a brilliant opportunity to bring back Jony Ive in some capacity. His material design skills are top notch. I’m sure it will come in white!

USB-C AirPods Pro 2 & Vision Pro

Besides the AirPods Pro 2 update having just a USB-C charging case the H2 chip has been tweaked to provide lossless audio for the upcoming Vision Pro. Brian Tong’s YouTube channel has a great interview with Apple VP of Sensing and Connectivity Ron Huang explaining why(hint, turns out the Vision Pro may have an H2 as well, Mr.Tong scooped the heck out of that one).

An observation I was not expecting

Ok first off this is in no way related to my bias for WHITE apple products. If available I will always default to silver/white. Nothing to do with my love for the iPhone’s 4S and 7 Plus in sliver/white , iMac G4 and G5 etc. In my not that small group of friends who either update their iPhones every year or every 2-3 years, there is a disappointment that the iPhone 15 does not come in white. Yes even with the extremely muted pastel colors they are bemoaning lack of white. Some will get the iPhone 15’s Pro in white titanium but the majority will not. They will not upgrade this year. I’ve already gotten multiple calls asking if the spring update for the iPhone 15 color will be white. 😳🧐.

Great Takeaway from Daring Fireball

As usual Gruber is not first out of the gate with his Apple Event reactions but as he lets the event simmer and percolate he always has one of the best retorts bar none, the below being one of my favorite parts of his post on Daring Fireball.

“On the surface, camera features and GPU specs don’t seem related, but they share one thematic similarity: they’re two areas where Apple is behind the industry state-of-the-art. iPhone cameras aren’t behind the state-of-the-art for phone photography, of course — they’re probably the best, and undeniably among the best. But they’re not the best cameras, period, full stop, in the world. Apple wants them to be, and is pursuing this relentlessly year after year. And while Apple Silicon GPUs are also undeniably market-leading for phones, they’re just as undeniably not market-leading in PCs, where Nvidia reigns supreme. I firmly believe Apple wants to do to Nvidia with GPUs what they did to Intel with CPUs — match or surpass them in pure performance, and utterly blow them away in performance-per-watt.”

“But my god, what a GPU the A17 Pro seems to have. Hardware accelerated ray tracing is a huge deal, and a major differentiating factor between Apple’s M-series chips (which don’t have it) and high-end PC GPUs from Nvidia and AMD (which do). Clearly, this new GPU is not just the biggest aspect of the A17 Pro, it’s going to be the biggest aspect of the M3-series chips for Macs and iPads (and, eventually, Vision headsets) too. The A-series chips have always had world-class GPUs for phones, but Apple is attempting to narrow the high-end GPU gap on the PC side as well.”

WOW!

Apple Vision Pro is here running visionOS. The dawn of Spatial Computing is upon us. I’m still speechless.

Apple WWCD23 Vision Pro multitasking 230605

Very Excited new iPhone 14 Pro looks white

The new iPhones 14 Pro look simply stunning. I ordered the iPhone 14 Pro Max 512GB in Silver and its coming on Friday 9/16. Plus I’m very pleased that the back looks more white(in the photos) than the 12 and 13 Pro’s. I will have a full review after I have received it and had a few days to put it through its paces.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro iPhone 14 Pro Max silver 220907