GPS Assist - Hangs and Contact probs!

johnb1

I thought I would post a copy of my recent email sent to the GPS Assist mail address.(support@autoreplying.com)

I would also comment that I was impressed by the general write up of the software from Dave Burrows (Pocket GPS site) and purchased a legitimate copy that is showing severe behaviour buggettes!

Dave...I have, in reseaching my problem, realised that both GPS Assist and yourself are aware of some issues. GPS Assist should put a clear and concise note on their site and I would suggest that you do the same on your site as having paid good money I am not yet as impressed as your write up suggets I ought to be. It let's your own credibility drop thru the floor.

The application does look feature packed but when the Pocket PC hangs and other poor behaviours kick in it lets itself down.

Dave ....Please post any updates and warnings soonest so that others are fully awre before purchase.

In the meantime I await a response to my queries and any forum user who can help...well please feel free to mail me or post a general forum response.

Regards

John

________________

Sent 24 August 2003

I am personally trialling TomTom2 and have recently subscribed to GPS Assist to experience and run the software. Your reference #PS007.

I have an iPAQ 2210. The application has been loaded and registered. It sits on the SD card along with TomTom2. I have loaded the eVB application.

I have experienced the following problems:

1          If I am running GPS and TomTom2 with my Bluetooth GPS and then turn the iPaq off it cannot be re-started with the on/off button but only by a soft reset. It appears to keep the Bluetooth connection open as I observe the solid blue signal of the GPS receiver.

2          Also when I'm running GPS Edit if I tap on the contacts button I get an error “Error ‘Application Error. An error was encountered while running this program……’. The timer icon spins with no ability to cancel it.

I then tap OK and the rest of the programme works OK but the contacts button becomes greyed out, and I can no longer use the point to point screen. Also any changes that are made to setting are not saved.

I have checked the FAQ and there is nothing of significance.

Could you please answer the following:

What issues are known with the software and where can I see them?

Why do I have to answer ‘Yes to All’ when loading the software as it seems to overwrite later files?

Regards

John

johnb1

And within a couple of minutes I received the following mail...dated 25 August. Who are these people?

Dave Burrows...you need to seriously qualify your recommendation on yor website!

JB

________

Thank you for your message. This is an autoreply.

Notification

------------

The PromaSoft office will be closed from August 2nd until August 17th, 2003. We will respond to your questions as of August 18th.

For 'urgent' support questions please call +32(477)379826 during CET (GMT+1) Office hours.

Registration code generation for all PromaSoft products will still continue during this period.

Thanks for your understanding,

PromaSoft Support.

pjpearce

I also purchased a copy of GPSAssist, based on the recommendation from the review on this site, and I have had a few problems with the really slow speed of the menu's when in GPSAssist. It even seems to consume memory even after it has terminated (soft reset cures this).

I also get the (now famous) autoresponse email from their site, when I email'd for some help. This is not really acceptable support for a commercial product.

On the other hand, CheckPoint works quite happily.

XDA Owner

_________________
<br>
pjp

Dave

John, Thank you in regards to the review. We try our best to write reviews as accurately and as full as possible, most of our readers do like our reviews. To address your comments, first of all:-

1) I was not aware of compatibility issues with GPSAssist under Windows Mobile 2003. I haven't tested this myself and because of this I would have no direct knowledge of this. I don't know why you think I do have knowledge of this ? I do read the messages here, but don't read all messages, simply not enough time in the day!

2) Our review was written on 13th January 2003, way way, way before Windows Mobile 2003 came out. Any new hardware or technology that comes out after a product has been released is never guaranteed to work, there can always be incompatibility issues, look at problems that Navman, TomTom and PowerLOC have had recently! If there are compatibility issues, usually the developers will update their programs fairly quickly to support it. However, with that in mind, I did receive an email from Jo on 20th August which I posted to the forum here

3) John, you say you shelled out good money for GPSAssist. Why didn't you do like most people here did and use the trial version ? The trial version is good for 40 uses, and if there are compatibility problems, then you would have found these before purchasing! Personally, I never purchase shareware programs before trialling them first!

4) The powering off feature and not being able to power on is a feature of Windows Mobile 2003 and older software that hasn't been made compatible. Microsoft have heavily re-written the operating system code when going to WM2003, and this affects some (not all) programs, and this is something that Navman users have witnessed recently. This needs to be fixed by the author. Microsoft did make a statement at the release of WM2003 that due to the huge code re-write, some programs may not work, and this has been followed in our forums here and also posted on most Pocket PC related websites at some point or another.

5) Regarding contacts in GPSAssist. As (4), Microsoft had re-written the Windows Mobile 2003 interface where programs would interface with the contacts via an API, and a lot of websites have recorded issues with programs that used to interface via API's to contacts, the application author's have had to code work-arounds to resolve these issues (and this has again been posted on many Pocket PC websites). As (4) an update will be required from the author.

6) John, you mention getting an autoreply back from Promosoft and want to know who these guys are ?! If you go to the GPSAssist website, you will notice that the company who writes GPSAssist is called Promosoft, the same company that you received the email from. In-fact it says at the top of the page PromoSoft GPSAssist for TomTom Navigator and the domain name is Autoreplying.com.

7) If you check out the GPSAssist Website it does state at the top of the page that "GPSAssist is a Pocket PC 2002 application and expands TomTom Navigator with several useful functions/tools.", it doesn't mention support for Pocket PC 2003 (WM2003) or TomTom Navigator 2. I see that they have added a FAQ question which does now say that it will run on WM2003 providing eVB is installed, again I have not tested this. Another point to mention is that TomTom Navigator 2 came out in early April, again we have not re-reviewed GPSAssist under TomTom Navigator 2 (although I had tested it) and under PPC2002 it did work okay (although some people experienced issues with button mapping, I've never witnessed this problem).

John, I think most of the issues you experienced and reported above, could have been avoided by opening your eyes a little using the trial version prior to purchasing GPSAssist. I do sympathise with you that it would appear from what you say, there are problems (although I'm not directly aware of these, nor tested these), and I think most of these probably would have been addressed, and were going to be addressed within the last two months when the author was going to do a compelete re-write of GPSAssist to support TomTom Navigator 2 but from what I understand of the author he has recently changed jobs and has had very little time to write a new version of the software. Although it's not good, I can also totally sympathise with Jo (author). I like all of the Pocket GPS Team have full time jobs, Pocket GPS does not pay us a salary, yet I alone put in a whacking 60+ hours a week into Pocket GPS, all of which are on top of my usual 8 hour day I work. I'm usually still found at the keyboard into the early hours of the morning (usually 1am) as some of the team will contest too. I suspect Jo is finding lack of time changing job, it can be a stressful time, but hopefully this will be addressed going forward, GPSAssist was a very popular and successsful program under TomTom Navigator 1 (PPC2002), but lack of updates recently has seen a lot of people jump to different products. I would suspect that as TTN2 has been out since April and we're now approaching September and Jo hasn't re-written the program properly to support TTN2, I would highly suspect that we will not see a new version of the product (just my opinion).

I will put a note on the GPSAssist review later pointing to this thread, but first of all you need to understand stomething. We do have over 300 reviews on Pocket GPS, it is simply not possible to test every piece of software, on every piece of hardware after a product has been reviewed. If we were able to keep most of the products we reviewed, we would spend all of our time testing previous (out dated) software and not reviewing new software.

We do however have a huge selection of Pocket PC hardware, GPS hardware and software available to us, and if there appears to be an incompatibility, let us know, if we have the hardware/software, we'll try and schedule a test into our hectic schedule to see if we can validate these problems, or see easy workarounds.

I hope you understand everything I have written above, and this isn't meant to be a flame of any sort, I'm just answering your questions and trying to state the obvious which I think you have overlooked in several cases.

What program do I use currently with our Pocket GPS Safety Camera Database ? CheckPoint 2.0.2 which is available on our downloads page (v3 has taken a backwards step and v2 is not available from the CheckPOInt website).

Hope this clarifies a few issues.

chuggyspals · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 10:55 pm Post subject:

Hi Dave,
Having used GPSAssist usefully on both my H3850 and now my H2210 and on absorbing other peoples experience, allso your extensive post, I feel the majority of your post to be perfectly valid. However the resposibility for ongoing support must be company responsability and not that of the, as I understand employed software writer.
I feel the company have let down their both loyal, patient and faithfull and should ever overcome the situation or refund their customers who purchased on the basis of promised future compatable upgrades.
I feel this product is excellent and could easily lead the market in the future, if it was supported and developed.
Perhaps one answer could be for the legal owners of the software to sell this product to someone who has greater interest in developing it.
Dave, although I feel you have been most unfairly criticized, I allso feel you have left yourself a little open by not stating at the end of the review(which was accurate at the time) that the company was currently having problems maintaining updates. This should not be in the form of a link but in the form of a note/update. I feel this would make the picture clear to any potential purchaser influenced by your review. They would then have no excuse fore complaint as they would be fully informed.
Carry on the good work Dave, I find your reviews an excellent source of accurate information.
Regards Kevin Bull Nottingham England

lakisa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 16, 2004 Posts: 1

I have also installed GPS Assist on my H5550 with PPC2003.
Since installation, TTN has become very unstable needing a soft
reset sometimes to recover.

I am also very concerned that the installation overwrites several
Windows system files ( approx 13) with older versions. I suspect these will
not be restored when I remove the trial software.

Needless to say I will not be buying this software until they have a
working PPC2003 version, which is a shame because the software looks very good.
Crying or Very sad

DavidW · Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:11 am Post subject:

As I've posted several times (I think the original explanation has now disappeared from the forums), I wouldn't hold your breath for a new version of GPSassist.

By the developer's own admission, the code really needs completely rewriting. In addition, he has a new job now and not the time he had previously. GPSassist causes problems for some people under Pocket PC 2002 (there was one report here of Windows Media Player going wrong until GPSassist was removed) and its general invasiveness is likely to be even more of a problem under Pocket PC 2003.

Since GPSassist was released, CheckPOInt became available free of charge to provide POI warning facilities - which was, for many people, the reason to buy GPSassist.

Further, GPSassist was developed for the original TomTom Navigator. TomTom Navigator 2 changed what people wanted somewhat from their add-on program (for example, "navigate to" support in Contacts was added to Navigator 2) - though I don't think GPSassist developed that much after the release of Navigator 2. I suspect we'll have TomTom Navigator 3 within the next six months - it may be closer than that - and it could well be that will again change what people want.

When you put together the admitted need for a total rewrite, the developer not having the time he once did, the potential market for the program being reduced by the availability of CheckPOInt (that gives the main feature that many are looking for for free) and the possibility that more GPSassist features will be incorporated into Navigator 3, I think it's unlikely we'll see a new version of GPSassist. I believe Dave Burrows shares in this conclusion, though his reasoning may be slightly different to mine.

I'd love to be proved wrong - if a new version came out that had worthwhile features for whatever version of TomTom Navigator was current at the time, and it didn't have the compatibility and invasiveness problems of the current version, I'd be highly likely to register and recommend it. As it is, I won't let the current version near my iPAQ, particularly as my iPAQ is now running Pocket PC 2003.

You will probably struggle to undo the changes GPSassist made to your 5550. You may be able to soft reset, remove the program, back up using iPAQ Backup, hard reset and restore the backup - but that relies on none of the overwritten system files being in use immediately after a soft reset, and none being required to backup successfully. No other alternative strategy is likely to succeed, save for a hard reset and total reinstall of your programs and data (I think backing up, hard reset, then a restore omitting the overwritten system files would be tricky to pull off successfully - though it is theoretically possible with iPAQ Backup or Sprite Backup if you have that). Your best option, of course, is if you have a backup file from before installing GPSassist!

David

devulderj · Frequent Visitor Joined: 07/01/2003 09:56:05 Posts: 413

All,

note that version 2 is a fact. More details and a free trial can be found at below address

http://www.autoreplying.com/gpsassist.htm

Best regards,
Jo.

DavidW · Posted: Wed May 19, 2004 10:52 pm Post subject:

I'm very happy to rescind my very negative comments and say that, having worked with Jo and others on the beta testing, GPSAssist 2 is an excellent product already, and I think there's still lots more goodies to come! I paid my registration fee based on a pretty early beta version, which says just how excited I am by it.

David

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