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BrianT Regular Visitor
Joined: 03/02/2003 14:17:44 Posts: 85 Location: near Geneva, Switzerland
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Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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StuartAllen wrote: | The iPhone gets the initial fix from the mobile cell but even if there is no signal the GPS eventually finds where it is. It just takes longer. |
Oh OK, so that's how it works. Using the mobile cell must make it pretty much instantaneous otherwise it might, typically, take a minute or so....? A bit like a normal GPS device? The posting I referred to earlier mentioned "Kept on having to enable data roaming to get an initial position" but maybe the initial fix doesn't actually require data roaming? Or would it?
Is there perhaps something I can read somewhere about this?
Thanks, Stuart, for your speedy response just now! :-) |
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StuartAllen Regular Visitor
Joined: Mar 25, 2006 Posts: 97 Location: Essex UK
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Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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I used my iPhone in Greece sailing this summer with data turned off and had no problem with GPS. _________________ iPhone 3GS 32Gb, OS 4.1, not jailbroken, CoPilot, TomTom, TomTom car kit. |
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BrianT Regular Visitor
Joined: 03/02/2003 14:17:44 Posts: 85 Location: near Geneva, Switzerland
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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StuartAllen wrote: | I used my iPhone in Greece sailing this summer with data turned off and had no problem with GPS. |
Great - did you use your car kit (which you mention in your signature and which I believe contains another GPS antenna..?) or did you find the iPhone antenna adequate? Have you found that the additional TomTom antenna well worthwhile? I'm asking this because I'm thinking that if I had another satisfactory way of fixing the iPhone (eg, the forthcoming gorillamobile device for iPhone 4) then I'll at least delay getting the TT car kit. |
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StuartAllen Regular Visitor
Joined: Mar 25, 2006 Posts: 97 Location: Essex UK
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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I found that at sailing speed of about 10mph the iPhone alone was adequate. In the car I need the improved TomTom car kit to get a good signal. _________________ iPhone 3GS 32Gb, OS 4.1, not jailbroken, CoPilot, TomTom, TomTom car kit. |
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mikealder Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 19638 Location: Blackpool , Lancs
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 9:25 am Post subject: |
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Brian, in the car you really need a powered holder if using the iPhone for GPS or the battery in the phone will be dead before you get to your destination!
As for the GPS reception, the 3G is crap, the 3GS is a little better and the newer iPhone4 is very good. For the newer iPhone4 I wouldn't bother with an external receiver/ mount just a plain old powered holder, if you are looking at a 3G or 3GS then consider the holder with integral GPS chipset such as the device offered by TomTom - Mike |
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BrianT Regular Visitor
Joined: 03/02/2003 14:17:44 Posts: 85 Location: near Geneva, Switzerland
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 11:30 am Post subject: |
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Many thanks, gentlemen, for taking the time to reply - most helpful.
Mike, it's for my spanking new iPhone 4 and I certainly had anticipated plugging it in when in the car as I've always done with my iPaq. I just read your interesting article about Brodit mounting mods., etc which has inspired me to modify my old iPaq mount! |
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BrianT Regular Visitor
Joined: 03/02/2003 14:17:44 Posts: 85 Location: near Geneva, Switzerland
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Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 9:24 am Post subject: |
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Just thought I'd report back that I bought TomTom for Western Europe the other day and although I've only used it a few times in the immediate area I am VERY happy with it. I bought a small car charger and for the moment my iPhone 4 sits in my old iPaq car mount with a couple of elastic bands.
It 'fixes' in seconds - so much better than my old iPaq which usually took several minutes. Route recalculation is good and fast (slightly faster than on the iPaq) and beyond that there are a great many improvements.
I'm happy! |
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shedracer Occasional Visitor
Joined: Mar 27, 2006 Posts: 17
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 2:49 pm Post subject: iphone 4 with TomTom and TT car mount. |
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Hi guys, I have been using my iphone 4 with the Navigon and its been very good. The iphone 4 seems to keep gps signal virtually all the time.
Anyway as I only had the UK Navigon maps, I thought that as I will be travelling over to the continent, that I would like to get the European mapping. I decided on TomTom, as the traffic updates appear to be more accurate, which would be great for travelling to work.
I bought the TomTom iphone European ver 1.5 app and also bought the TomTom car mount. Having used it over the last couple of weeks, I have to say that it has some good feature and some not so good. The main problem I am having is, where as before using the Navigon mapping the iphone 4 was extremely good at keeping gps reception, the TomTom seems to loose gps reception all the time, even when used with the TomTom car mount, with its additional gps antenna!!!
Has anybody else had this, is it a firmware bug or is it just TomTom poor design?
I have to say, I do prefer the look of the Navigon mapping over the TomTom. The TomTom seems to very old fashioned in its looks and the speed camera database is hopeless.
Anyway I look forward to some replies, as having spent over £180 on it all, I do hope the gps reception issue is something that either I have not configured correctly or something that TomTom will be putting right soon.
Many thanks. |
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MaFt Pocket GPS Staff
Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 15320 Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 3:15 pm Post subject: |
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shedracer: are you using our CamerAlert app at the same time? Some people have an issue of loss of fix when running our app in the background (also many who DON'T have an issue). I'd be interested to see if you were getting this issue with the TomTom dock without CamerAlert running. If so then it could be the dock playing up rather than either of the apps.
MaFt |
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shedracer Occasional Visitor
Joined: Mar 27, 2006 Posts: 17
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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Hi MaFt, I do have your app on my phone but didnt realise you could use it while using TomTom and so haven't used it at the sometime. Do you think its worth me removing your app, just to see if it makes a differrance?
Also I am in the process of changing my device over with you, on my account.
cheers |
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Darren Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 4:21 pm Post subject: |
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shedracer wrote: | Hi MaFt, I do have your app on my phone but didnt realise you could use it while using TomTom and so haven't used it at the sometime. Do you think its worth me removing your app, just to see if it makes a differrance? |
Having it installed will not cause any issues. It is designed to multi-task but there seems to be some issues when running it at the same time as TomTom for some users. _________________ Darren Griffin |
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MaFt Pocket GPS Staff
Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 15320 Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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but it's interesting how shedracer is having the same issue WITHOUT running CamerAlert...
to me it seems more and more like an issue with using an external GPS receiver.
MaFt |
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SSR Frequent Visitor
Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 432
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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Using the latest version of TomTom here, on an iPhone 4, and no GPS reception issues at all. There was an issue with the previous version where it wasn't so great, covered vaguely in the update text. I also noticed when running another GPS app (ViewRanger) that TomTom would regularly lose signal - does the iPhone "timeslice" the GPS data between the two apps, or a TomTom bug? Haven't tried both together since the latest TomTom update.
Navigon might look better, but I find TomTom is far more mature as an app, and more importantly in its route finding.
The only app I know with decent speed cameras is CamerAlert. Don't bother with anything else. |
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SSR Frequent Visitor
Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 432
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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(And I don't have the TomTom cradle) |
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Darren Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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MaFt wrote: | but it's interesting how shedracer is having the same issue WITHOUT running CamerAlert...
to me it seems more and more like an issue with using an external GPS receiver.
MaFt |
Let's try and keep the discussion of that issue in the specific thread where I'm sure there are posts from users who don't use the cradle but are affected? _________________ Darren Griffin |
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