TomTom Navigator for MS Smartphone - Screenshots

Darren

MSMobiles.Com, an MS Smartphone dedicated website is leading with a sfrom TechED 2004 in Amsterdam where TomTom are demonstrating their forthcoming Navigator for MS Smartphone product which apparently will use the new cross platform engine currently available on the Plam and GO products.

It's a non-working demo with no GPS functionality as yet but the screenshots look great and I can't wait to get my hands on it for a trial with my SPV E200 Smile

Read the article here.
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Darren Griffin

Borg · Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2004 3:39 am Post subject:

How can they release this press statment, its not working it's just a demo map running, it's like saying 'I got a car here for sale, no engine, or wheeels, or even car, but I got a video of one driving down the road'

If it works then yes it looks like a good idea but until then I'll not hold my breath

Darren · Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2004 6:51 am Post subject:

This isn't a press statement, it's a non-working demo being displayed at an industry event. It's common practice. The last thing you want is a buggy Beta version being played with by Journo's who will crash it in seconds and then print a 'it's a pile of bo**ocks' news item.

Instead they display engineering prototypes of in this case the software equivalent to give a taster of what's on the way.

It's definitely coming!
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Darren Griffin

wibbly · Frequent Visitor Joined: Dec 20, 2003 Posts: 315

I once saw a press release issued by Cisco where they quoted a product pre-release user saying how it "Will be great when it works" ! And this was released as a positive press release ;-)

W

Borg · Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2004 7:20 pm Post subject:

Darren · Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2004 7:25 pm Post subject:

Fair point but you can still demonstrate the interface which is all important in a device with no keyboard and no touch screen, all you have is 1-9, * & # so a slick interface is vital.

Also it's pretty standard at events where GPS Software is being launched or demonstarted for special non-working versions to be set-up with demo routes displayed and running, this is necessary because at a large indoor event there is no simple way of making a GPS signal available and journalists who don't understand all this would be most unimpressed if the manufacturer's said 'here's the unit but we can't show it running because we can't receive GPS' etc etc.
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Darren Griffin

Wilko · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 17, 2003 Posts: 203

I've got one of them SPV E200 Smartphones (I don't use it anymore with the battery only lasting a day at best). I really can't see this one taking off.

The screens are too small on current phones to be of any use while driving in a car, its illegal to touch your phone while driving, plus when the phone does ring, a bluetooth headset would be useless with the phone being locked to the bluetooth GPS device, plus the map would vanish off screen while the phone is ringing.

Just my opinion, but I see this as more of a statement to show it can be done, I don't see it as a practical sat nav solution.

cheungster · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 09, 2004 Posts: 8

NickG · Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2004 8:37 pm Post subject:

> The screens are too small on current phones to be of any
> use while driving in a car

Some smartphones have screens as big as most PDAs - eg the XDA II.

> its illegal to touch your phone while driving

After I've inputted the route - I don't need to touch my PDA. A phone wouldn't be any different.

> plus when the phone does ring, a bluetooth headset would be useless
> with the phone being locked to the bluetooth GPS device

Only if you've managed to find a retarded phone which only has ONE bluetooth channel. Most devices have many. I'm not sure if there even ARE any phones with only one bluetooth channel...

You're also assuming that people would buy this software to use it in a car. If it's on a phone, it's much more likely that tomtom would tailor the software to also suit people on foot (eg walking around a foreign city/national park/forest). Personally I've been moaning at TomTom to have a "pedestrian" mode for a while - the fact that it always snaps to roads and doesn't support simple waypoints is really restricting. I ended up having to use memory map instead and and I now need room to store two entire sets of maps, when a minor tweak to TomTom would would make Memory Map redundant (for me).

Nick...

dazednotconfused · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 10, 2004 Posts: 18

Just read the press release dated 22nd June, this can be found at http://www.tomtom.com/news/press_release.php?Press_Release=87&Language=1&WR_Language=[/url] In my case if this is succesfully launched then it makes having a wired in car phone kit (P900) being linked to a Bluetooth GPS receiver a very desirable option!! I'm looking forward to the day when I can ditch my very crashy iPaq 2210 and use one device for nav / organiser / phone!!

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