Yamiya, Just wanna blog

Posts Tagged ‘navigation’

To my surprise TomTom releases Malaysia and Singapore map sooner than I expected, being this is TomTom first appearance in Malaysia. The app price at USD59.99, average pricing for iPhone navigation software. The app is preloaded with Malaysia and Singapore maps, meaning user can use it without internet connection. TomTom claims map coverage of 99.9% for Singapore and 54.5% for Malaysia. Scrolling thru Klang Valley maps, it looks promising, possibly above 90% coverage, although some gated residential still missing on the map, similar to most commercial maps. POI seems to be updated, taking example of a petrol station near my house which only started operation last year. Most Penisula Malaysia major cities also have high level coverage. As for East Malaysia users, please save your money. It's pretty blank over there.

Searching address is different from Garmin. You first select country -> city -> street. I find this search method return better results as I won't end up with few same street names as on Garmin.

Time to take it for a walk. Terrible navigation. TomTom iPhone is not make to work at walking speed. The arrow will spin around and you won't know which way to go.

Let's take it for a ride. My car is covered with old version V-Kool. It blocks 90% GPS signal. In the past all GPS devices inside my car fail to lock onto the satellites. The only way to salvage the last bit of GPS signal is to place the external antenna near the edge of the windscreen which is not cover by V-Kool. With iPhone A-GPS I was able to get a clear signal within a minute. My iPhone is connected to my car stereo using Apple Composite AV Cable to listen iPod (iPhone). Once plug in I can charge my iPhone and voice from TomTom will be directed to the car stereo (aux mode). This saves me from buying TomTom Car Kit and stick to my RM12 iPhone car holder with windscreen suction cup. While using TomTom I won't be able to listen to FM radio, but I can start up my iPod first, only then enter TomTom. TomTom will automatically pause the music when the lady speaks out directions ahead. A very clever design.

If you have experience in Garmin Nuvi or Mobile XT, TomTom interface won't trouble you much. It's user friendly. The menu is easy to access and select while driving. Similar to all GPS devices, when searching for places or creating routes, do ask the passenger or stop the car to do it. Don't try to do it while driving. It's dangerous!

Overall TomTom iPhone meets the requirements for a good navigation device. There's the basic 2D and 3D view, day and night mode, map browsing, favorite places, advance planning and route demo. The (human) voice is loud and clear. Available in various languages. All my literate languages are present. Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Malay. Mandarin are available in either female or male voice, be in Taiwan or China accent. Same goes to English, available in UK, US, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand accent. I choose English (UK) Jane being it speaks in meters.

Auto reroute is a blessing. Finally something that actually works on iPhone. When I drove past a turning TomTom immediately recalculate the route and directs me to make a U-turn. For cases with two highways (KL-Seremban or Sungai Besi Expressway) leading to one place, whenever I was on the non-routed highway, TomTom will automatic reroute to the new highway. Under route planning you can choose to avoid toll roads, ferry crossings, HOV lanes and unpaved roads. Limited compare to Garmin.

The 3D map is pleasant to navigate, showing nearby roads and mimic real life scenario. A curve road ahead looks just the same as on 3D map. There are few color schemes to choose from for both day and night mode. Unlike Garmin, user need to switch between day and night mode manually, two touch on the screen (see menu above). The map works in both portrait and landscape mode. While navigating

The speedometer is accurate. There's also the speed limit warning below speedometer (the 50/50 thing), however this is somewhat inaccurate, showing most cities highway speed limit at 110km/hr whereas the true speed limit is only 80-90km/hr. Can I use it to argue with traffic police if I got a ticket?

One note to be taken, iPhone gets very hot when GPS is in used, be it TomTom, nDrive or Sygic. Thus don't judge TomTom is causing it or suspect your iPhone got problem.

What's missing? As with most basic car GPS navigation device, you don't get to record and share your tracks, nor contribute POI. There's also this Call POI feature, similar to yellow pages. You can actually find a restaurant, police station and call up their number. It works for Singapore POI but the numbers are missing for Malaysia map, not even any POI in Kuala Lumpur city center.

One last test. Let's try creating a route from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu. Nope, it doesn't allow me to do that. Logical enough.

PS: This article is based on iPhone navigation apps available in Malaysia.

Switching from iPhone 2G to 3GS finally fill in the missing piece, GPS. With it I can sell off my Garmin GPS and iPhone will be my one and only portable gear, or not quite yet.

I have go thru many navigation apps and to my disappointment none can fully replace Garmin GPS. On the list, the more navigate-able horse are NDrive and Sygic. Both pass the turn-by-turn voice navigation and user interface test, but fail badly on the maps (Malaysia). It's totally outdated! Dating back 5 years I guess. Lucky for me I tried them on my friends' iPhone. Unlucky for them paying USD29.99 for NDrive and USD79.99 for Sygic.

I rule out all apps which is based on OpenStreetMap. OpenStreetMap is big in overseas but too fresh for Malaysia, which translate to incomplete maps. Perhaps in the long run it will be as updated as Malsing with contribution by more users.

At the time of writing, among the three big names (Garmin, TomTom, Navigon) in navigation solutions only TomTom has released iPhone app. I have no experience in TomTom as they are not available in Malaysia ever before. As for TomTom iPhone app, don't count on it to be available in Malaysia map anytime soon, or perhaps never will. I would rather pray and bet on a Garmin iPhone app. A seemingly impossible chance but still higher than TomTom.

Recently a developer has released an app, ImgOsm, that can read Garmin IMG maps. He claims that Apple refuse to approve his app on app store, and such he releases it in Cydia. Going thru ImgOsm, it seems that Apple disapprove it more than one (Garmin) reason. Crash occasionally, terrible user interface, no turn-by-turn voice navigation and an asking price of USD30! At the time of writing I still can't get Malsing map to run on it.

ImgOsm

What's left is Google Maps. iPhone built-in Maps is based on Google Maps. It's not as updated as Malsing but definitely better than NDrive and Sygic, though occasionally spell the street name wrongly. Google need to hire more Malay fluent engineer and translator. Anyhow without turn-by-turn voice navigation, Maps is inadequate for driving use unless you know the area well and only need to find that particular street.

NaviCat fills in the missing feature, turning 2D Google Maps into 3D turn-by-turn voice navigation. A voice navigation that doesn't pronounced the street name but display it. It supports auto reroute too (not tested). The only scary part, there's only one road heading to Rome! Either in 2D or 3D, it will only display the route you taking, without any other streets at the side. Whether or not you can rely on such "revolution" navigation is really down to personal preference. I still prefer an actual map.

Left with one. Interestingly sometimes free software performs better than paid ones. Again it is not approve by Apple. That's right, you will need to jailbreak iPhone in order to use xGPS. In fact xGPS is the very first turn-by-turn voice navigation app, long before any of the above got into app store. It's based on Google Maps. The best part is you can selectively download Google Maps, various zoom levels and view it offline. I downloaded 8 zoom levels of Klang Valley and Singapore maps, which takes up 190MB storage space. There's also the xGPS Manager (free) which you install on desktop (Mac, Linux, Windows), download and view the maps, upload to iPhone and backup from iPhone.

However there's still many limitations on xGPS to fully replace my faithful Garmin.

1. While Garmin has evolved to a polite soft female voice, xGPS still use synthesis alien voice.
2. Searching POI and creating route requires internet connection to Google Maps database, either 3G, Edge or WiFi. This means xGPS may not work well in rural areas.
3. Reroute (in case you gone out of track) relies on Google Maps and again requires internet connection. I find that rerouting is not as smart as Garmin. For some cases it simply fails to reroute (only one route to Rome). This seems to be a problem on Google Maps since xGPS relies on the Google Maps database to compute reroute.
4. Only available in 2D (Google Maps). No 3D visualization. Personally I am a 2D person, good in Raiden but never in 3D flight simulator. Thus xGPS navigation interface works fine for me.
5. In comparison Google Maps resolution can only go down to 30m whereas Garmin is down to 5m. This is a major issue when driving in dense cities like Kuala Lumpur, and worst still in Singapore. xGPS occasionally shows me that I am on the next parallel street, which can be confusing to driver.

For now if I am driving in Klang Valley where I am familiar with the roads, I will use iPhone with xGPS or Google Maps to find my destination. Likewise I will keep my faithful Garmin in the car, just in case iPhone fails the tasks.

[Updates: Hurray! Tom Tom has released Malaysia and Singapore Map version. You can read the review here.]