TomTom iPhone Dock, anyone? (1 Viewer)

[Michael_K_Sr]

The GPS chip is solid. I don't have the dock and the only place I ever have a problem with a signal is in large downtown areas (think Chicago and New York) where the GPS signals are blocked by large skyscrapers. I've been out west in mountainous areas with zero cell phone service and the TomTom GPS has still been spot on.Traffic is a $19.99 in app purchase.

 

[Sam Posten]

Damn, beat me to it!

I love my dock for power and extra GPS sensitivity, well worth it!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Thanks for the info so far.

One thing. If you use the dock (or keep it plugged into power), won't it shorten battery life faster since you'd effectively be doing more recharge cycles (than you might really need)?

I'm always wondering about the battery issue. And since the iPhone's battery is not (easily) replaceable, it becomes that much more of a concern to me. And no, I don't really want to have to rely on swapping to new phone (and contract) every 2 years to address battery life issues -- I may end up re-upping after 2 years anyway, but don't want the battery issue to become the primary driver for that.

Thanks again...

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

Interesting question and one that I share. I've got a car adapter that also charges so the same result on battery as the gps adapter.

 

[Sam Posten]

Comprehensive review:
http://www.macworld.com/article/156720/2011/01/gps.html

I don't care about the battery issue. These are tools to me not toys and tools have limited life cycle and usage cost. If I burn out a battery and apple won't replace it we'll deal with that then, until that point full steam ahead.

Also, don't get in the trap of thinking that you are 'invested' in these things. You arent invested. These things lose their value as soon as you open the box and if you are 'collecting' them rather than 'using' them you are sure to be disappojnted.

 

[DaveF]

MacWorlds article is a very high-level overview; wish it had been out last Fall. And while it's no longer relevant to me, I wish they'd fo deep dive reviews on TomTom, Magellan and Navigon.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten
Comprehensive review:
http://www.macworld.com/article/156720/2011/01/gps.html

I don't care about the battery issue. These are tools to me not toys and tools have limited life cycle and usage cost. If I burn out a battery and apple won't replace it we'll deal with that then, until that point full steam ahead.

Also, don't get in the trap of thinking that you are 'invested' in these things. You arent invested. These things lose their value as soon as you open the box and if you are 'collecting' them rather than 'using' them you are sure to be disappojnted.

Sam, I don't get your logic. IMHO, if you consider it a tool, you *SHOULD* care about a potential battery issue. Sure, you can factor in whatever potential battery issue in your decision-making process. But a dead phone will be a dead tool. And if it dies long before your expectation due to certain types of usage (and cannot be refreshed w/ new battery at a reasonable cost), then it's maybe not the right tool for the task.

Nobody here is looking to just collect these things near as I can tell. It's not an either or proposition.


Anyway, interesting to see that MapQuest's (free) GPS app is now doing so well in that comparative review. Good to know there are good, free alternatives besides Google's solution (on Android anyway) even if one prefers one of the paid solutions (for primary GPS nav). I do wonder though how much the free aspect influenced the favorable rating for it...

Thanks for that link.

_Man_

 

[Sam Posten]

Of possible interest to you cheapskates =p

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/16/tomtom-puts-its-hd-traffic-service-data-in-a-browser-lets-every/

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hmmm... I took a look down the 1st page of reader comments, and there's mention that TomTom actually samples cellphone location data from the carriers to help determine live traffic conditions, which makes it more reliable than most other such services (that tend to just rely on standard traffic reports).

Is that really true? Didn't realize any of these companies is doing that.

Interesting indeed... although the free web access apparently isn't available in this part of the world yet though...

_Man_

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

I thought Navigon relied on live data from users of their own devices to augment their traffic service. Anyhow, I have TomTom's traffic service and find it to be very reliable. I'll definitely be renewing it later this year.

 

[DaveF]

TomTom is on sale this weekend.
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/30/tom-tom-kicks-off-july-4th-weekend-sales/

 

[Sam Posten]

Thumbs up!

 

[DaveF]

It's been our full-time GPS for a year now. It's helped with local drives, three vacations, and number of business trips. It's not a perfectly designed app--I do wish they would make it more iPhone-y--but I am very happy with TomTom. And have now sold a few friends on it too.

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

They just updated it the other day with multi-stop routing and HD traffic (annual subscription.) 1.5GB is a decent chunk of space, but it's indispensable when I am out West with no cellular coverage. Great app. Puts my old standalone GPS to shame.

 

[DaveF]

I'm looking forward to trying the multi-stop for restaurants on my next car trip.

I do wish it didn't need ~3 GB to update. I have to do a multi-sync process, removing videos, updating TomTom, re-syncing videos, with every update. Maybe iOS5 will enable smaller, patch updates.

 

[Sam Posten]

That's definitely the plan. Two biggest pains for me are updating xCode and TomTom.

 

[DaveF]

Tiny, over-the-air TomTom updates will be the ultimate validation of iOS5, to me

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

Version 1.9 is out and is finally optimized for the iPad. Hopefully this fixes the traffic service, which has been broken since iOS 5 was released. On the downside, so much for the smaller install sizes for app updates...it looks to me like it is once again downloading the entire 1.32GB package.

 

[DaveF]

My wife said it was a big update. I was hoping for a tiny update. But so far, I'm not sure I've seen any sign of delta updates for any apps being renewed for iOS5. Maybe you need a full update to be iOS5 compatible and then deltas after that?

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Optimized for iPad?!?!?! That's just ridiculous. Who the heck would use GPS on a 10" tablet?

_Man_