Navigator 2 Wishlist

[Cessquill]

My £0.01...



1. Ability to change the angle of 3d view. It's too close to the ground for my liking such that I can't really use it to see what's coming up.



2. Subcategories in POI - each with different icons, so you could drill down for brands of garages/cashpoints/restaurants, and have different speed camera speeds all under one heading. You could then either search for all, or only of a particular type. It could make the POI list a little easier to use as it gets bigger. Better POIs in general. OK, so TTN2 is a big leap forward, but there are still garages in Peterborough that closed down years ago, and I've found some where there have never been any. Some kind of collaboration with a data provider (yellow pages/whatever), similar to the map people, would make a definitive POI system that you could really trust (even if it took up much more data). You could then select what types of POI you wanted to install.



3. on-line support for POI's/destinations/roadworks/map updates/traffic congestion. OK, so not many people's PPCs are on-line at the moment, but if 3G takes off an always on connection to a series of information servers would make navigating anywhere much easier. More of a pipe dream at the moment though.



4. Smaller/custom cursor in 3d view - I look like a bloody great space ship flying down the road (or family-sized hang glider).



5. Text-to-voice conversion to read road names



6. Better support for dual carriageways (instead of "ahead, keep left" - similar to motorways "exit the carriageway ahead", or whatever). OK, so this is probably more country-specific, but there you go.



7. Improved algorithm for roundabouts ("cross the roundabout, first/fourth exit" when it should be "turn left/right")



8. POI Warner.



9. Definitely faster city search. Finding places takes far too long. Is this the same company (or derivative thereof) that made En-Route (AKA Route Planner) for the Psion 5? I seem to remember the same problem there). Is this something to do with how the data is stored? I wouldn't mind hopping up to a 256mb SD card if less data compression meant faster searching.



10. Intelligent "Avoids". As well as blocking out areas on the screen, you could select to avoid to go through towns. Something like that. Didn't the old Autoroutes have something similar?



11. Stop disabling the BT GPS when I turn my iPaq off and on again. Grr!



12. An info screen that shows exactly where you are, in case of emergencies, breakdowns, or just for fun. It might do that all ready - I'm always finding things I'd never seen before. Another side of this is that on sunny days I often just drive, without knowing where I'm really going, and use TTN2 when I want to come back. A split screen saying where you are, or listing nearby POI might be nice. Getting a bit sad there, methinks.



13. Yes, "via" points. Please. Plus the ability to add a via point whilst you're on your way somewhere, like go via a petrol station/cash machine. Since TomTom knows where you're going it could then only list POIs that are on the way, and not 30 miles back where you've just come from.



14. Again, post-code search. Just like on a web-site. Post-code, building number/name. No messing.



15. More details in the map. There are quite a few roads in Peterborough that are on there, but listed as "Un-named", when they are 30 year-old roads with at least 15 houses on.



16. The ability for it to learn your speed preferences for calculating ETA. No biggie though.



17. Upgradable maps/software/POIs on-line. I know that the map issue is huge file size and the like, but that's not my problem. It might be beneficial on both sides for them to develop much smaller sections that can be intelligently upgraded at sync (even if it meant 1,000 files on my SD card rather than 12). I would pay a monthly/six monthly/annual fee, they would get a guaranteed recurring revenue with which to plough into development/beer, and my map would never be more than a few weeks out of date. With broadband access and the like being more common now, I wouldn't blink at a complete download of TTN2 GB, rather than CD distribution. Their servers might think otherwise though.



18. New Voice. I've perhaps been used to the Microsoft concept of giving away little things at upgrade, but if they tweaked the WAV files a bit they'd be a whole lot smoother. For some reason I was expecting this.



19. Voice recognition. OK, so I'm getting my pipe out and having a good old dream now, but if my phone can perform a whole load of actions by me talking to it, why can't I train my iPaq to do the same? Maybe because it's too far away to hear me...?



20. Would a screen off feature be good for when you've got to run without power? Having a BT system I often have to run it in different vehicles, and sometimes (because of phone chargers and all that), I have to run on batteries alone. If I could toggle the screen off, or it only came on when something was about to happen I could save a shed load of battery life. Similar to Running Voice mobile phone software that can be set ot only come on when your phone rings.



21. Ability to navigate from Appointments/tasks as well as contacts. OK, I have no idea how this would work, but I often store locations in appointments and tasks. If I could automatically pull them into TTN I'd be happy.



22. Somebody mentioned the storing/logging of routes. If you're using it for business then this would be a handy feature come expenses time. Even more so if you could enter the price of petrol and consumption rates (didn't AutoRoute do something similar)? This is probably getting a little out of the realms of the original function of the software now though. However, if TTN knew the consumption rate, capacity and last fill up time for your car, it could be intelligent enough to warn you to fill up at a nearby POI. Pipe dreams again. I'll wait until Microsoft develop the vehicle interface and TTN can patch into it to monitor fuel levels/consumption rates.



23. Recalibration of the GPS signal. My receiver is in the back of my car, and I've sometimes noticed that it can be a little behind. Might be me though, but the ability to trim it a couple of feet wouldn't go amiss.



24. Ejector seat. Running short of ideas now. If your mobile phone is also paired with your PPC then the ability to phone up a favourite/POI/contact from within TTN, or at least store more information about a POI. Not sure about this one, but again, a pairing with a data provider would add greater exposure to the advertisors with that provider and give TTN more kudos, so maybe a mutual agreement could add value to the software at no extra cost other than storage space. I wouldn't mind a little advertising if it told me when something was option/how much it costs, etc. Thinking about the POI system - the amount that you could do with them if you had on-line syncing, or more data stored per POI. Petrol prices listed. Entrance tickets/food ordered over SMS. Links to even more information (maps/menus/etc.). OK, so this is way too ambitious, but wouldn't it be nice?!



25. Picture of a dancing man when you reach your destination. Or at least the ability to easily clear the route when you're near your home. Mind you, you can toggle the sound off with a shortcut key now, can't you?



I know that implementing a lot of these would make the current UI too complicated to work with, especially on the road, but there's no reason that a lot of these options can't be invisibly introduced. Plus I think the current UI is still a bit weird, until you're used to it, so I'm not adverse to a bit of teardown and build up.



One of the things I initially didn't like about TTN1 was the lack of options and customisation. Once I started using it though I realised just how intelligent it was, and all of the things it did without asking you wouldn't want to change anyhow.



Freud would have a field day with the amount of times I typed TNT instead of TTN...
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[Cessquill]

1, Thinking about it, with the 3D view I would settle with an automatic angle adjustment to more of an overhead view when it zooms in on junctions.



2, Definitely icon shrinking in 3D view - it's four times the size of a POI, making my car far too big to get into a petrol station.



3, Integration of traffic lights when calculating routes. Invariably I am often taken down roads that - if every light were on green - would be a much quicker way. If it could know about them somehow and the calculation algorithm take into account the potential time difference that would be nice. Maybe a little unreasonable though.



4, If there is room, then road names/further information appearing on the navigation view.



5, Would be nice to have a signpost view, so if you are just driving around, when you get near a junction an intelligent signpost might appear. Probably a lot of work for something though.



I'll stop now, since this is a realistic wish-list and I've far exceeded that.
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[musicreative]

My wish is for a stable, working TTN2 product on Compaq iPAQ 3970...totally unusable at the moment.

[NikosF]

Additional:



12. Ability to enter co-ordinates in something other than WGS-84 (or whatever it is). Would be useful to be able to enter / output other co-ordinate systems (e.g. when using OS maps)



13. Sunrise / sunset / moonrise times for current location

[Cessquill]

More...



- Speed info for the road you're on. Again, probably a new map issue.



- Ability to start route before route calculation is finished. There's times (especially when I don't really know where I am) that I have to sit there for a few minutes whilst TTN faffs around with an extra 10,000 roads a few miles from the destination when I could be moving.



- Tron icon in 3D view getting tired now.
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[Cessquill]

Tom Tom options added to Tools menu when viewing a contact - not just from Contacts list. Removal of the "Are you sure you wish to show this contact on your map" message after you've just taken two actions to confirm it.



That said, the ability to update a contact from the TomTom "show on map" option is cool.
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[Oldie]

My wish is that Cessquill worked for TomTom. Think of all of those goodies that would be in TTN3

[Cessquill]

Thanks Oldie. Now, a job in Amsterdam. Would I get anything done at all if I'm spending my normal job in the UK doing this?!



In addition...



When using the Exit Application shortcut in Navigator View, the volume doesn't get reset on the iPaq - much to the annoyance of my co-workers when everybody knows that my machine is docked with a three note wav.
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[Dave]

Maybe Cessquill does work for TomTom and he's trying to let slip what will be available in a years time that we just missed out on

[Cessquill]

Nah. My name's not Tom.
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[Cessquill]

3D view, although an advancement, isn't a great view on its own. It's fine if the next portion of your route is virtually straight, but when you've got a lot of turns, because you're only seeing what's in front of you on your screen you can no longer see around corners. I've got mine set to toggle 2d & 3d on one of hardware buttons, but it would help to have an automatic toggle. Either that, or have the system a little more intelligent as to pan left or right depending on what's coming up. Or lift the angle a little to give you more of a bird's eye. Raised this a little earlier - thinking about it more. I don't think it's as clean cut as a 2d/3d switch, more of just an ability to dynamically switch around angles in a 3d view - from overhead to gran-tourismo floor level.



If traffic lights were included in the map data, you could enhance the voice flexibility to make the dirctions clearer ("turn left at the traffic lights", etc.).



If the software will only really run on an optimised storage device (ie, completely defragmented), then an item on my wishlist would be to defragment it for you. Either that, or once the installation is satisfied you're installing to a place with enough space, then it copies all current contents to your hard drive, verifies it, adds the mapping data, removes the data on the PPC, and copies it all back down from your machine. If formatting with different cluster sizes is a viable and acceptable option, then why not include that as an option? I'm of the install and go variety, so I didn't really want to be delving too much under the bonnet with defragging and the like when putting TTN2 on (mind you, if Microsoft were that cutting edge, your PPC would maintain itself by now).



Herge's adventures of TomTom
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[Cessquill]

I don't know whether anybody else has found this (happened in TTN1.5 also) if you're using a Socket Bluetooth GPS unit and you turn your PPC off, when you turn it on again if the BT unit is in range your GPS will be disabled. If it is out of range, then TTN will just give an "unreliable" message.



Annoying - anybody found a workaround yet? That's on my wishlist
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[Cessquill]

More...



- The ability to access Contacts from within TTN, using the big keyboard and text (unless you can do that now), rather than having to switch back to Today, into contacts, find the contact you're after and click & hold.



- The ability to store several modes of transport (walking, biking, different vehicles), and allocate different restrictions and speeds to them. One vehicle might be a large lorry, and hence small roads and low bridges would always need avoiding. Walking could go in more places, but not motorways. Stuff like that. Then, when you spark off a route, one of the dropdowns would list all forms of transport used by you (but only if there was more than one). Guessing height and width restrictions would mean more map data...



Hmm.
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[Dave]

Cessquill, never managed to see this under TTN1.5, but TTN2 doesn't do that for me. I can re-connect fine without a disabled message. Are you exiting TTN before switching off or leaving it open ? Personally I exit TTN before switching off.

[Buffy Beagle]

Dave wrote: "Personally I exit TTN before switching off."



By exiting do you mean clicking the X at the top-right corner, or do you mean closing the program completely (via Settings-Memory-Running Programs)?

Hugh

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