Wot ? No Ireland?

[Tony Bond]

Have just taken the plunge, bought TTN3, Toshiba e800 BT, Holux 270 GPS, Arkon car mount and, to my delight, everything works well. Less delightful was the painful discovery that the UK maps do not include Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. I'm amazed that no one has drawn attention to these fundamental shortcomings in the software in this forum and, especially, in the review which, much less importantly, criticised the absence of M6 Toll road support -an insignificant irritant compared to the total absence of as large a part of the UK as if Kent and Surrey had been omitted. Apparently, it is not even possible to buy from TomTom 'European' maps of Ireland -North or South. Does anyone know please if it is possible to buy other mapping software for northern and southern Ireland to run alongside TTN3 rather than substituting new software entirely? Tony

[lbendlin]

Talk to TeleAtlas about Ireland - they love to hear about this. Maybe they will eventually also survey the island... And then (only then) can TomTom offer the Ireland maps.
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

[Darren]

For some unknow reason the both the Republic and Northern Ireland have always been poorly served by both TeleAtlas and Navteq map data. Navteq has some coverage in the Republic but even then it is only cities and some larger towns with little or no coverage out in the country.

We have discussed this issue in the past but it is a fair comment as new readers will likely be unaware of this and we will endeavour to mention this issue in future reviews. Sadly in every current application this problem will be apparent.
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Darren Griffin

[Steveg]

Now it might just be me being a bit dim, but I have TT3 and I have just checked (as I did a few days ago for another person) and my copy of TT3 does indeed include Northern Ireland in its data.

I planned a route from central Belfast to Carrickfergus and there semmed to be no difference in the way things worked to the mainland

Eire however, is another matter, there is no date for there in the UK maps - no surprising really Eire is not in the Uk

Cheers

Steve

[Darren]

Not just you! TomTom3 now has pretty good coverage in NI (although strangely they make no mention of this in the map coverage listings on TT's website), it is the Republic that I think was the concern of the original poster which is completely overlooked
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Darren Griffin

[Steveg]

Thanks for that Darren, but no, he did quite specifically say Northern Ireland (as well as the republic) Thats why I answered.

Much appreciated that I am not going wierd and mine is right

Cheers

Steve

[Tony Bond]

Thanks Steve & others. Have found the N.Ireland segment you mention. Had previously missed it as two of my contacts in Omagh & Antrim failed to be found via 'show map' and I didn't zoom out the map far enough to notice there is indeed some coverage of the Province. Apologies for having rushed to incorrect judgement. However, only Belfast appears to be covered down to street level, everywhere else it's major roads only. These are crucial shortcomings, especially non-inclusion of the Republic in the Europe package. Glad to note that these major defficiencies will be mentioned in future reviews for the benefit of newbies like me who may otherwise assume their TTN3 will help them find all the Leprechauns and pots of gold of their dreams. Cheers. Tony

[Hunnymonster]

Indeed - the response I got from TomTom is reproduced below:

[Darren]

OSI & OSNI data is of little use to Geodata providers, it lacks information such as one-ways, road widths, road speeds for categorisation, kerb heights, bridge heights, weight limits etc all of which are captured by TeleAtlas and Navteq.

That's why they exist!
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Darren Griffin

[AlunS]

FWIW, Navteq are currently in the process of re-surveying the whole island of Ireland operating out of a base in Newry (NI). Word is that they'll be ready sometime in 2005.

One of the (many) problems with surveying Ireland in general is that we have a relatively large number of roads for the (current, post famine) population. We therefore have a vast number of small unclassified roads that are little more than dirt tracks with grass growing up the middle, some of which aren't even accurately depicted on the OSi maps, which are crap anyway.

Add to that a considerable level of ambiguity regarding street names and even place names, and the total lack of postal codes (mainly due to the previous two stated problems!) and it makes for an interesting challenge.

[Tony Bond]

I am grateful to all who have made further contributions clarifying this subject. I now find that Mapopolis, who use Navtech maps same as TTN3, do offer detailed mapping of Ireland (see http://www.mapopolis.com/counties.jsp?s=1083496519375093&p=&q=28110.03264226327) which I am thinking of buying to supplement the deplorable near-omission of this country by TTN. I am still sore, having forked out a fortune for this kit, that TT don't include detailed maps of Ireland even if their current quality doesn't meet their standards, as they claim.

Question: Does anyone know, please, if it is technically possible to instal and run on the same PPC two different manufacturers' maps and guidance software, in this case Mapopolis and TTN obviously, or could this cause software or driver clashes and instability? Do I actually need Mapopolis' guidance software or just their maps of Ireland if the latter can be read by TTN's guidance software, given that both are made by Navtech, presumably to the same protocols?

Should be most grateful if anyone can offer comment please.

Thanks,

Tony

[lbendlin]

I have about a dozen different navigation programs on my test-pocketpc. as long as they are friendly to each other and do not permanently block the BlueTooth stack (bad boy bad boy TomTom GPS 2.08+).

Obviously you cannot run them at the same time, but you can certainly install them on the same machine.
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

[DavidW]

[Tony Bond]

Oops..Thanks for that DavidW. You're right of course. As you suggest, I had Navtech in mind at the time of writing because of reference to it in this thread. No doubt, this means there could be less prospect of compatibility if I run both companies' applications and maps on the same PPC, but I should be grateful for any further clarification you or others may have please if you have experience of running more than one GPS mapping utility on a single PPC.

I append some feedback from Mapopolis on this, which may be of interest to others as surprised and annoyed as me by the absence of full coverage of Ireland, North and South by TT, a fact well disguised in their marketing of the product:

"Our maps should be very similar to TomToms. Since our viewer
application is free, why not download it and try out a trial map or two of Ireland? (Street level detail is good within cities, but it decreases as you move into the country. This shows as roads that are not named on the map and do not contain address information.)

Note - TomTom does not play well with other software. Many customers are unable to get their TomTom BTGPS to work at all with other software, and Mapopolis is not an exception.

If you have that GPS, I'd suggest not attempting to run Mapopolis unless you want to do a hard reset of your device, which would wipe out TomTom as well as your other programs.

European maps are only sold in Platinum (non-GPS) and Navigator (GPS) map packs. The Platinum maps are $34.95 and the Navigator maps are $124.95.

If you wait two or three weeks before you purchase a map pack, there's a very good chance that the new release will be out within 30 days. When that happens, we will upgrade you to the new release for free. This is NOT
automatic, however. You have to ask for it.

Please find attached four screen shots I just took showing the Dublin map. It will give you an idea of what our program looks like there.

Thank you for your interest in Mapopolis.

Regards, Lamar @ mapopolis support"

[Darren]

The issue with TTNav co-existing with other apps has been covered in depth here, you can happily install multiple applications including TTNav and each will work happily (not at the same time obviously!) but since v2.08 of TomTom's GPS driver they introduced a 'fix' to cure an issue that ocurred when users shut down their PPC's whilst TTNav was running. This fix had a side effect which took control of the BT Com Port effectively preventing apps other than TTNav from accessing it.

The cure for this is simple and once effected restores normal service and allows other apps as well as TomTom to access the BT Com Port. Search for TomTom~GPS in the forums t read the full background and the very simple fix.
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Darren Griffin

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