Sat Navs

Richard53

wba31 wrote: »

I found the TomTom app to be exactly the same as my old TomTom, the advantage was that I only had to take my phone out the car and not a phone AND a sat nav.

I am quite a fan of the TT, and I would have no problem with using it on the phone, but when I last looked the TT app was pretty expensive - £40-50 or so? You are most of the way to a new basic TomTom for that.

Revv wrote: »

The annoying thing with Google maps on iPhone is, when the routing starts, it will pause if you touch the screen. Touching in this case will include zooming in/out. It just gets some tome to get used to it.

What I found was that it started the route fine, then a big box came up saying "turn right at the roundabout" or whatever, and that warning stayed on the screen long after the roundabout was ancient history, and the map didn't move either. I kept restarting the app, and then realised you could move it all on by swiping the warning off the screen and the next one came up. Great if you are browsing the route at home before you set off, but not so good if you are negotiating traffic at the time.

I need to use it more and find its secret little ways, I think.

Ultrasonic

pollyanna24 wrote: »

Another thing to consider is that I don't actually have an in car charger. Does it come with the phone?

No, you'll need to buy an in car charger separately. But doing so will be a lot cheaper than buying a standalone satnav, plus it will mean you can charge your phone in your car .

What will actually cost you more is a mount for the phone, if you don't already have one?

Richard53

Also, don't be surprised if the phone gets very hot. I once used an app called 'Ride Logger' for a 6-hour bike ride, with the iPhone in a tank bag, and at the end the phone was almost too hot to touch. Apparently, the GPS chip generates a fair bit of heat when it's working.

Stooby2

Have a look on eBay - there's plenty of older, but perfectly good Tomtoms, Garmins etc, going for not a lot of money as people upgrade to the newer one. I'm still using my Tomtom One which is about 6 years old now but works fine.

Lum

I'm not an iPhone user, but I've had no problem with phone satnavs I've found them favourable to cheap satnavs. The expensive ones are probably better these days (last expensive one I had was a Garmin Streetpilot III in 2003, £800) but as most folk already own a phone you have to ask if it's really worth it.

Apparently NavFree is good on the iPhone. Is Apple Maps still horribly broken then?

Richard53

Lum wrote: »

Is Apple Maps still horribly broken then?

Please ignore what I said above about about Google Maps. It's the Apple Maps application I was using. Duh.

Answer: it's not great, but better then it was.

I downloaded the Google Maps app as soon as it was available for iPhone, but it's not a patch on the full PC version. Must try that next time. It's on the last screen of three, and I keep forgetting it's there.