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Porsche Is Making Connected Car Technology A Priority

The pocket-dwelling supercomputer – a.k.a. mobile phone – is steadily taking a more central spot in the lives of average consumers. Integrating the many functions that it performs seamlessly into the driving experience has become sort of a challenge for carmakers, and not even Porsche – the marque perhaps most synonymous with distilled driving pleasure – is immune.

According to The Detroit News, Porsche Cars North America COO Joe Lawrence called connected car technology a “huge emphasis” on Wednesday, further remarking that “Recognizing the phone is so ubiquitous in every sector, how do we integrate that into driving experience in a way that is safe and enjoyable?”

For starters, concedes Lawrence, automakers can turn to the likes of Google and Apple to source connected car technology. “I think all manufacturers are talking” to the two tech giants, he said. But beyond the basic software and hardware, there still remains a bigger issue of how to design a system that is intuitive, requiring minimal searching for functions, and one that doesn’t deter from the driving experience.

As Porsche pushes ever more toward the same path that BMW has chosen – that is, producing performance vehicles of front-engined, practical passenger cars – it should probably come as no surprise that connected cars are on the agenda for the German automaker. But how Porsche manages to balance a savvy tech feature set, practical automobiles, and the high watermark exotics with which they’ve traditionally been associated, remains to be seen.

Aaron Birch is an automotive enthusiast and writer/filmmaker from Detroit, MI. As a rule, he only buys cars older than himself.

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