CoPilot 5 - some observations

Rattle · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 8:09 am Post subject: CoPilot 5 - some observations

Ok, I got my copy of CoPilot 5 EU last week, and put it down to a bit of work, so here are my two cents. After two of such detailed reviews as those by Dave and Lutz, I thought I’d better concentrate on things as they are vs. things how I expected them to be. As for me this was an upgrade, I expected that all bugs (at least maor) of version 4 would be fixed and new ones wouldn't be introduced ... silly isn't it? :D

The pleasant surprises:
Well, first of all, installation of CP5 itself was really seamless on my H5550 – just uninstalled the old version (4.0) and the new one was up and running in minutes. Activation was also without problems, although I must admit that software companies are overdoing the serial key bit (why do I have to rub my fingers raw and then enter 30 character strings if they are checked against a server anyway…). I’m omitting the map download part here on purpose, because that goes into the disappointments section…
OK, so now CP5 desktop and PocketPC are set up, maps downloaded, GPS receiver configured (I have the CoPilot branded Socket BT receiver, it was detected and configured seamlessly), car tanked up, chips and fanta on the ready, all set to go. The first pleasant surprises while driving are the 3D view and the route over highlighting – together they work beautifully, I can see the whole route to destination like 5 miles ahead while at the same time not losing the details of the immediate location. On a small downside, the 3D view works well only with the Heading Up map display option (I guess you could call me strange but I had developed a kind of affection for the north up display mode). Also, it seems that in 3D the arrow position isn’t as accurate as in 2D.
The next pleasant surprise is fully functional selective routing: now you can set avoid on more than one segment of the itinerary – gimme hallelujah! Saved me considerable jam time last night when I made it avoid a road until after some 5 or 6 attempts CP5 calculated a route totally circling around a totally blocked 20 mile segment!
Also, ALK have listened and included more information in the Navigation screen – now it always shows the current road on top plus one custom line at the bottom. Thanks to this, the Navi mode has become far more useful than before.
The text lookup when entering street and city names is also a great feature and makes life so much easier.
Next, adding stops directly from map works nicely, just tap and hold a place on the screen, then select “add as stop” from the pop up menu, However, at first I was confused because it only starts to work above a certain zoom level.
And last, but not least, the new maps. I find that one some well-traveled routes CP5 makes better decisions than CP4. Or it could be that routing algorithm has been upgraded, but the updated maps are worth it – the Czech Republic for example is now reasonably well covered as opposed to just Prague and a few other cities in CP4.
Night view feature is really good. The colors are soothing to the eye. I only wish it switched on about 30 minutes earlier than it did

As for the desktop application, the only pleasant surprise is that the routing preferences now finally work (the advanced button in route planning options). It actually DID route off from motorways when I pulled the Freeways slider all the way towards Avoid. However, and this is really a large drawback at least in my opinion, these options don’t work on PocketPC, nor can they be adjusted there. For me this is a real bummer, as I would use at least the “avoid freeways option” a lot (for example, in Austria most of motorways are not free, one must buy a vignette to drive on them. But the rest of the roads are free, so with avoid motorways option I could save money or time setting avoids.)
That’s about it for the desktop, it doesn’t look like very much work went into updating this part.

All right, and now for what I expected to be in version 5 and what has left me disappointed:
- First of all, dynamic rerouting. When I was upgrading, I had got the idea (from someone in this forum I think) that the re-routing functionality has been improved and re-routes instantly when you’re off scheduled route. Unfortunately, I must say this is not the case. The case is, it works exactly like in the previous version, which is to say slowly and inaccurately. I mean, when it does re-route, it does it well, but the problem is the CP5 is lazy re-routing, forcing on you it’s wishful thinking instead. If, for example, the scheduled route turns left on a straight intersection and I drive forward, the arrow will stop in the intersection and not move for at least a hundred metres, then re-routing is performed and arrow jumps to the current location. Now imagine that there is a next left turn after about 100 metres. CP5 wakes up, re-routes down this left turn, but I have already passed it and we are back to square one. This has happened to me and it took 4-5 reroutes before CP could catch up with the location. The worst thing is that if I stop, CP5 will not re-route me at all. It almost wishfully thinks I am on the correct road even when I am not. Now, what’s even worse is that if the road I’m on goes closely along the scheduled road, CP will think _ I am on the scheduled road_ and not the actual one and even offer turn directions for the wrong road! Imagine not taking the ramp when you should have and the two roads go side by side for a while after that. It could be miles before you even discovered something is wrong! This is such a major fault that I had every reason to expect it to be fixed in version 5 and was the feature I was the most looking forward to, and I am really very disappointed.
- Next disappointment – the TTS. Usually they are supposed to get better from version to version, but in this case it seems to me it has actually become worse (this could be a matter of getting used to though, as I have been hearing it only for a couple of days). The problem is, I find it hard to understand half of what the male TTS is telling me, because it doesn’t make even the slightest pause between words and mangles them together so that one has to really concentrate on listening to get the message. Besides, it is too fast. Maybe ALK have tried to increase the voice output speed to reduce time to deliver message, but this is too much. I got more information from the slower voice of CP4. Is there a way to slow it down somehow, or at least make it pause between words? The other problem with TTS is that it does not read what’s in the brackets. Quite a few roads (at least in Germany) are named like “B2 (Frankfurter Ring)”. So CP5 says “500 meters ahead turn left on B2”. Period. Kinda defeats the purpose of TTS, doesn’t it?
- Also about TTS, and this is not a bug, but rather an option that I suggested to ALK about a year ago but was not implemented. It would be really, really great if the interface language was separated from the TTS language, or rather if the interface and basic TTS were in the default language installed, but the pronunciation of the actual street names was done in the language of the current location. Of course, it would require some megabytes to install several TTS engines, but the effect would be truly amazing and modern PDAs could take the extra load. A storage card definitely could.
- Map downloads. That was the part that didn’t go as well as the rest of the install. At first I tried to squeeze in as much into my 512SD card as possible, so I started experimenting with city radius. I found that 910km around Munich would fit exactly with about 1MB to spare. After pressing download and waiting for ever, the download wizard went to the end of “Step 2 of 3: Copying selected areas” and then announced that data copy had failed (just the area was being copied, no quickstart or highway network, copying to SD card directly, not via ActiveSync). Whereupon the map data folder on the SD card contained mangled filenames much like the ones in that pocketgosworld article about the SD cards possessed by Aliens Smile

Couldn’t even format it on my PC. But my iPAQ took care of that. So, anyway, I then tried to download less, say 800km radius and what do you know – this time it was successful. This tells me that either a) the memory requirement calculation is wrong or b) there is something extra being copied onto the card that is not advertised or taken into account when calculating.
- Another thing in connection with map downloads – I’ not getting any POIs downloaded, except speed cameras and all the custom categories! In the POI download options all boxes are checked. I’ve even tried to uncheck and check them all, but still nada. I’m running EU version by the way. In the POI tab of the Options menu in PocketPC I only see custom and transportation groups. Has anyone else had this problem? Help!
- Avoid toll roads option on the desktop PC does not seem to work. Try calculating for example the route from Munich, DE to Venice, IT. There is a toll road between Innsbruck and Brenner, which is avoided by PocketPC, but not by desktop. Also, while I’m on the topic, when I first saw CP5 maps on the desktop I was happy to see that highways in Austria, France and Italy are now drawn blue as opposed to red in Germany. I thought cool finally these are marked as toll roads and can be avoided. But nothing of the kind, they are just blue and that’s it. Does anybody know why?
- Map drawing of areas bordering with lots of water is incorrect. Previously, there used to be a blue wash over Venice, Mallorca and similar places. In CP5 there is no more blue wash, now there is gray land drawn instead where water should be. Better than the blue bug, but still annoying and definitely disappointing that ALK have scotch-taped a broken leg so it doesn’t bend while limping instead of putting a proper cast on...
- Desktop application is still underdeveloped – one cannot even decently navigate across the map, one has to go two levels down in the menu just to switch between the zoom and drag modes. To do something useful, you have to be a virtuoso of mouse play, as there is no keyboard support whatsoever. The country borders do not show up when the maximum detail is set, but when pushing the button less detail, the country borders do show up. And the larger zoom, the less detail are allowed if you want to see country borders…where’s the logic in that?

Well, that’s about it, turned out more of a bitching-and-moaning than a cold-blooded analysis that it was intended, but I couldn’t help it, sorry Smile

A for the bugs, could anyone else conform that they exist outside my computer/imagination, so that I can report then to ALK?

All in all, when I ask myself if it was worth shelling out 150 quid for this upgrade, I find I cannot say definitively yes or no, which really bothers me Smile

Basically at the end of the day it is CoPilot 4 with a new user interface, more recent maps and the same old issues. On the one hand, all the new bells and whistles are cool and all, but the core functionality should not be left on the back burner. I'm really

about the rerouting, as I'm sure now I'll have to wait for version 6 to see it fixed if ever... Could it be that ALK are not even aware of this issue? I didn't report it, thinking it was too obvious to miss, but was it?

Cheers,
Eriks

lbendlin · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 2:54 pm Post subject:

Thanks for your notes , North-View-Up-Preferer 8)

The rerouting speed is (IMHO) dependent on the overall size of the route and on the storage card you are using. As I mentioned in the review, calculations and lookups tend to be fast in small cities/small routes but take considerably longer in situations with long routes or big city street lists.

Should be a no-brainer - rerouting should first of all consider the next 50 kilometers (or even something configurable), and only revisit the whole route if that fails.
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

Rattle · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 4:25 pm Post subject:

Yeah, well... Embarassed

:D

Thing is, it's not the speed of rerouting that I'm having problems with. On the contrary, the rerouting is very fast and precise. The problem is that CoPilot does not perform it immediately after a deviation from scheduled path, but only a considerable distance later.

Cheers,
Eriks

lbendlin · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 4:46 pm Post subject:

That's strange. Over here rerouting is near instantaneous. Have you browsed the CFG files yet? I'm pretty sure you can set the delay somewhere...
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

Rattle · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:25 pm Post subject:

Now that's weird. How can it be that the same program behaves so differently? Could it be the EU maps? I checked the cfg files, as far as I could see there was no setting for any delay, except GPS trails playback delay.
But it's not really a delay, it's rather the distance - if I'm on a parallel road then as long as that road runs parallel with the scheduled one, CP will think I'm on the scheduled road.

Cheers,
Eriks

lbendlin · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 6:44 pm Post subject:

That's the "snap to road" feature - unfortunately you can't control that in CP5, it's always on.

It's a combination of problems for you - rerouting starts too late and then it assumes you are somewhere else.

Eventually it should not matter , however, for the goal of your jouney (to get to point B). Right?
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

Rattle · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 8:27 pm Post subject:

Well, no, it doesn't matter in the end, because eventually there's a long enough segment for CoPilot to finally reroute Confused

When it does, everything is back to normal.
But I don't think it's the snap to road feature, because in Navigation mode I am shown as being on the correct road, it's only the Guidance that plays up... And if the intersection is at say 45 degrees then even if I drive straight, CP will still show the arrow moving down the left road (if it's the scheduled route). Has noone else experienced this at all?

Cheers,
Eriks

HielandLad · Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 10:50 am Post subject:

I have noticed it. The program seems to assume where you will be going rather than accurately track it. It takes it a good 5-10 secs to realise that you have left its route.

Tim Buxton · Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 11:09 am Post subject:

Rattle · Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 12:40 pm Post subject:

I guess you're right, Tim, I haven't thought about it that way. But that would mean there definitely is a software fault, as the snap-to should snap to the nearest road from the real position, not from the imaginary one. Who needs a navigation system that deliberately displays false position? If I were making only the right turns, why would I even need a navigation system? Rolling Eyes

Cheers,
Eriks

Robin2 · Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 8:04 pm Post subject:

I am finding the same thing if I take a wrong road which runs parallel to the intended one - instructions continue as if I were on the correct one. This was an issue with CP4 and doesn't seem to have changed. TomTom, on the same roads, immediately detects the error and tells me to turn round
Robin

Rattle · Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 8:39 am Post subject:

Just an update: with the help of ALK the POI download issue was resolved, or rather, there is a workaround for it - do not check the "EU highway network" option in the download wizard when downloading map data. When I did that, all POIs got downloaded all right.

Cheers,
Eriks

Easygeezer · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 13, 2004 Posts: 23

Here is an observation, Navigation software for PDA's is still at a stage where it really sucks compared to dedicated machines, rather than address the problems / issues the software has for actually doing the job of navigating from a - b the powers that be spend time developing extras which are all well and good if you are achieving your primary objective.

Reminds me of those watches in the 80's with the calculators on etc...

HellFire · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 25, 2004 Posts: 126

You say the dedicated units are crap compared to PDA’s, I don’t agree I got CP5 and had the SP3 and the routing on both are just as good in my experience but CP5 also has more options the thing is you will always get good and bad in both

tivoboy · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 18, 2004 Posts: 23

I have found two differances in re-routing. The MAP re-routing and the TEXT re-routing.

By that I mean, when a re-route is necessary, and I am in WHERE AM I view, the PPC will do the MAP re-route very quickly, but the TEXT in the above left corner, will still show the previous mapping directions, THEN the TEXT will change, but later than needed if doing a re-route. Like, QUICK turn left here.

So, I use mostly the WHERE AM I view, and if a re-route is required, noted by the ping it makes, then I simply look at the map. If viewing simply the text, i'd never get there.

OP

makes sure to distile your omments and send them to ALK.

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