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Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 15311 Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:18 am Post subject:
Oh now this is utterly hilarious!
Received this PR from TomTom this morning:
Quote:
Today TomTom launched a summer mapping project that will give five families or groups of friends a two week trip to an uncharted tropical island. Five winning groups will become TomTom’s newest cartographers, embarking on all-expenses-paid mapping assignments to Fiji, St. Lucia, Mauritius, Cape Verde and the Seychelles. Intrigued? Check out this video for details. No mapping experience is required, and would-be mappers can enter here: http://www.tomtom.com/summer.
They're asking a member of the public, with no mapping experience, to map Fiji (and others). But Fiji is already mapped rather well by OSM here
Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 15311 Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:25 am Post subject:
This is TomTom's current map data for Fiji:
Compare that with the OSM link above. The OSM data was probably compiled by hundreds of users but TomTom want it all doing in 2 weeks by a family of 5 with zero mapping experience.
Joined: Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 10118 Location: Bexhill, South Sussex, UK
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:54 am Post subject:
I think you are being a bit unfair. TT own Teleatlas. Google maps are TeleAtlas. Fiji seems quite well mapped on our submission maps.
Are you entering the competition?
Joined: Mar 01, 2005 Posts: 1513 Location: West Mids
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:22 pm Post subject:
Google's map is now Copyright Google, not TeleAtlas. MaFt's link is from the TeleAtlas Insight page (which doesn't even show Fiji in the country list but you can move to it from eg NZ).
Still, may be worth entering for a paid for drive around the islands. What are the odds that the winners are OSM editors anyway.
Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 15311 Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:54 pm Post subject:
M8TJT wrote:
I think you are being a bit unfair. TT own Teleatlas. Google maps are TeleAtlas. Fiji seems quite well mapped on our submission maps.
Are you entering the competition?
Google are moving more and more to their own map data (mostly harvested the same time as they did the StreetView drives). Fiji in Google maps, as GerryC points out, uses Google map data.
And no, probably not entering the competition - I think the kids are a bit too young for 2 weeks of map making!
Although maybe Mike, Darren and myself could pick 2 mods and enter a PGPSW team?!
I've just read the headline editorial from PGPSW about Tomtom and OSM.
Very poor.
"they are not a viable alternative to the traditional solutions for many users."? Really?
Since when did you average family in your average Ford Focus care about width limits, weight limits, height limits?
One way roads, granted, house numbers, handy but I certainly remember using old TomToms that had almost no house numbers in them and it makes no difference. Get on the correct street, read a couple of numbers and its very easy to work out which way you need to drive and roughly how far.
Does the OSM data have absolutely NO one way roads, NO house numbers, NONE of the other data?
As that is the impression given by the editorial.
And "opportunistic developers"? How long does it take to write and maintain the free / 69p mapping apps? I'm guessing since they're opportunistic, it must take them 60 minutes, their lunch hour one day.
People who make their living from driving should buy professional navigation aids. For the vast majority of the people who don't need a professional navigation aid, this is perfect.
For those who can't navigate to any destination without the sat nav telling them the speed limit, road priorities, where to give way, which lane to be in, and exactly where to stop and what side of the road their destination is on, really should get some additional driving tuition.
For crying out loud, either write in an impartial matter or don't bother.
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:05 pm Post subject:
Wow, bad day? For those wondering what on earth got Fraggle so riled, it was my Editorial in this week's Newsletter here.
My point, made poorly it seems, was that those using a navigation app that uses OSM data may not know that it is not the same as map data from TomTom or Navteq. Most users have no knowledge of the various outfits behind map data and will expect the same experience regardless.
In places, OSM data is excellent, far better than TomTom/Navteq. But in others it's not. Some areas are lack vita routing data essential when trying to route to an address and there are still many places that lack road data.
The good news is it's improving at a rate of knots, and these gaps are being filled in all the time.
For what it's worth I'm a huge fan of OSM, I contribute map data to the cause and have been a map data editor for many years. So it wasn't my intention to denigrate OSM at all. _________________ Darren Griffin
Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 15311 Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:08 pm Post subject:
fraggle wrote:
"they are not a viable alternative to the traditional solutions for many users."? Really?
Since when did you average family in your average Ford Focus care about width limits, weight limits, height limits?
[...snip...]
Get on the correct street, read a couple of numbers and its very easy to work out which way you need to drive and roughly how far.
OSM seems to lack road names in a lot of areas. Also, while main roads are generally well covered, it is the smaller estates (with houses) that tend to be lacking.
Your average user would need to search for a road name. And, a lot of the time, they would be looking for a property within a housing estate.
fraggle wrote:
Does the OSM data have absolutely NO one way roads, NO house numbers, NONE of the other data?
As that is the impression given by the editorial.
Not sure where you're reading that. It simply states that mapping is more than just the roads. It doesn't mention anything about OSM data in that?
fraggle wrote:
And "opportunistic developers"? How long does it take to write and maintain the free / 69p mapping apps? I'm guessing since they're opportunistic, it must take them 60 minutes, their lunch hour one day.
Sorry but I disagree. 'opportunistic' does not mean 'quick and easy'. It means taking an opportunity. They are being opportunistic in the sense that with free mapping data available it makes it viable to create a low-cost navigation app. Otherwise they'd be stopped at the first hurdle by the massive costs of the TomTom/Navteq mapping fees.
Wow, bad day? For those wondering what on earth got Fraggle so riled, it was my Editorial in this week's Newsletter: here (unable to quote an web link) .
I apologies if my post was over the top, but people putting effort into something in return for nothing, be it map data collection, collating it, making it available, etc, is something I believe in strongly.
Quote:
My point, made poorly it seems, was that those using a navigation app that uses OSM data may not know that it is not the same as map data from TomTom or Navteq. Most users have no knowledge of the various outfits behind map data and will expect the same experience regardless.
My point is that the majority of people won't need the sophisticated meta data that the professional outfits provide.
I know approximately 10 people with sat navs, and they're all "bought to a price" bar one, they all lack lane indication, road speed limit indication, etc, etc (bar one again), and I don't know anyone who expects their sat nav to guide them to exactly the door number they typed in, expecting to have to do a bit of hunting for the door number.
Where you say
Quote:
A navigable map requires a huge depth of data including road priorities, widths, bridge heights, weight limits, street names, house numbers and more. And it is this data that gives value to the commercial map providers products.
Sorry, but "widths, bridge heights, weight limits, house numbers" are not required by anyone in a car / motorbike / push bike / hiking.
If you were talking about truckers, bus or coach drivers, people with caravans, yes I'd agree, and any of those people would be a fool to not by something which specifically says it has that data. But I don't think any OSM sat nav app has claimed they are suitable for professional drivers?
Sorry Darren, I'm just reading your editorial how it seem to be.
I think our main difference of opinion is how much do people actually rely on satnavs.
There are the stories in the papers about people following them religiously and ending up in the sea or the middle of a field of bulls, but I think people like that are very few and far between thankfully. I'm confident the vast majority have the intelligence to be able to cope with the odd mistake or obviously wrong direction, ir in this case, are more than happy to be guided to the correct street, and finding the house number themselves is easy.
Quote:
For what it's worth I'm a huge fan of OSM, I contribute map data to the cause and have been a map data editor for many years. So it wasn't my intention to denigrate OSM at all.
I'm glad to hear it.
The more of us gave our time to freeware projects the better they become.
I've used Tomtom for as long as it has been around and I cover 30-40,000 miles a year going to different places all the time.
I've found it frustrating all this time that it can take years for TomTom to update maps on a product that I'm paying a lot to buy (for a PND) and I have to subscribe to the map updates to keep the latest (joke!) maps.
Smartphones came along I like a sheep I bought the TomTom app for my iPhone when it came out. Now I don't have to subscribe to the latest maps as I get them anyway which is a big improvement but they're still waste of time in that new roads take way to long to appear on the maps.
I got involved with Waze as something different to do while driving in Feb '10. Back then the "map" was just few roads here and there, mostly the motorway network. It wasn't usable for navigation but it was fun and sociable. Two years and a bit later and whilst I still have Tomtom on my iPhone I rarely use it and rely on Waze for my day to day navigation.
If you look at TomTom vs Waze; the A46 Newark to Widmerpool dual carriageway scheme opened on it's new path on 1st December 2011. It was available on Waze on around 14th Dec, yet it's still not available on Tomtom ...
The up and coming Waze version 3.2 (which I am a beta tester for) is awesome and has some excellent new features.
Don't get me wrong, the Waze maps have not reached maturity and do not have specialist features like hight/width etc. The map is improving a lot as more users get on board and generally if you pop a postcode into the search box it'll get you there.
The point is if Tomtom don't pull up there socks and improve the service they a providing to their PAID customers giving them the data quality they are paying for then the free apps like Waze, NavFree etc will take their business.
As a high mileage car driver who relies extensively on satnav for work I can say I won't ever buy TomTom again. The Free apps are already good enough that I can't justify the expense to myself. The free apps may have flaws in their maps but so does TomTom.
Give Waze a try, don't expect it to be perfect, but the more you get involved in the community and map editing the more you'll get out of it.
Joined: 24/06/2003 00:22:12 Posts: 2946 Location: Escaped to the Antipodies! 36.83°S 174.75°E
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:34 pm Post subject:
Dave2084 wrote:
Give Waze a try, don't expect it to be perfect, but the more you get involved in the community and map editing the more you'll get out of it.
Waze is a pretty cool product, but don't forget that they could have used the OSM data but they didn't. They decided to create their own maps and anything you contribute to this community belongs to Waze. It may be built on community contributions but the data is NOT free (as in freedom). They could go out of business or start charging people any time they want.
By contrast, all contributions to OSM are licensed as free and open source.
As for TomTom vs OSM, it sounds like a re-run of Encyclopaedia Britannica vs Wikipedia... _________________ Gone fishing!
Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 6:00 pm Post subject: Tom Tom maps
I have used a tom tom rider for must be going on 5 years now. I stopped buying the map updates about 4 years ago because they were just plain wrong. Every morning my journey to work took me though the reception area of a building that had been there for years, i sent in the map share data, nothing. I complained and was told that it wasnt tom toms fault as they bought their map data from someone else.
Last year (three years later) i relented and bought another years map updates, more fool me. Same old problem but with fictional roundabouts this time. I complained and got told to use the map update facility. I pointed out that maybe they should take a look at out google maps. The map has finally been updated.
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