TomTom iPhone App?

[dvs_dave]

It's time for me to upgrade my satnav as my Snooper Indago is showing it's age.

Looking at the TomTom iphone app, it seems to tick all the boxes however I've a few questions on it's functionality.

Can you use an ipod control head unit to listen to music whilst it's navving?
Can you upload routes (.itn files) into it?
How good and up to date is the speed camera database?
Is it any good on on the standard iphone 3G?
Does the telephone work whilst it's navving?
Does it have traffic info and auto re-routing?

Thanks

[gazchap]

Don't buy the TomTom app, buy CoPilot instead. I've paid for both apps and TomTom consistently thinks I'm in a completely different location. CoPilot isn't perfect but it's a damn sight more reliable than TomTom.

Can't answer your other questions I'm afraid.

[waremark]

dvs_dave said:

How good and up to date is the speed camera database?

I have the Tomtom database on a Go 950. I consider it to be useful but far from perfect.

I have never seen a positive recommendation of the TT iPhone app; by the time you have paid for the app and the car kit you might as well get a dedicated satnav (though I personally would spend more and get a higher end TT, at least an XL IQ Routes).

I just watched the iPhone vid on the TT site - presumably you have watched it? It strongly implies, but does not confirm, that you can use music and phone at the same time as nav. The TT site never tells you which models offer itineraries - maddening.

[Shinkou Ookami]

I have the TomTom app on my 3GS,

Points to note:
01) As standard the GPS in the iPhone really isn't accurate enough, you'd need the TomTom iPhone car kit as well (£90 from Apple Stores) this car kit has a proper GPS chip in it meaning you get more accurate fixes and a better navigation experience.

02) If you get a phone call whilst using the TomTom app, and you accept it, the TomTom app will disappear and be replaced by the phone interface. iPhones can ONLY run one app at a time at present. when they release the OS4 update later this year you should then be able to keep satnav running and accept a phone call too, as OS4 should support multitasking

03) re listening to music as well as using satnav, not sure as I haven't tried, but the TomTom carkit for iPhone does have a music out socket so you can take a feed from your iphone to your aux socket for your stereo, I think you can play music and use the satnav at once, but as I said I haven't tried it so that is just a guess.

04) camera database isn't bad but I don't think you get updates to it as frequently as you can on a regular TomTom.

05) Re uploading routes, no you cannot do this

06) Re Traffic Info and AutoReRoute, yes but it isnt very good.

I have an earlier version of TomTom Navigator (6 I think) on a Windows Mobile phone and it is a much better piece of software thant the iPhone TomTom app.

If you really want to use an iPod like device for music and SatNav and Phone etc. to be honest get the HTC HD2 Windows Mobile smartphone and purchase TomTom 7 for that (the TomTom software interfaces with the true GPS chip in the phones hardware spec giving you a fix as accurate as a stand alone satnav or an iPhone using TomTom and the TomTom iPhone Car Kit), you'll be able to do everything you have asked about with that package and whilst Windows Mobile is a little clunky to use compared to an iPhone it is fully multitasking so you can use it as a satnav, play music, take a phone call and browse the net as well if you want whilst playing a video file in the background and hotswapping between all the apps.

Edited by Shinkou Ookami on Tuesday 4th May 03:15

Edited by Shinkou Ookami on Tuesday 4th May 03:17

[Driver Rider]

Hi guys thought I'd have a shot at reviving this thread.....with the new ios4 is the Tom Tom able to multitask?ie play music, answer calls whilst still running?

[The fatboy]

pointless to get a £90 iphone kit then a £50 something for the software, I'd pick the XL for that price.

[bga]

Driver Rider said:

Hi guys thought I'd have a shot at reviving this thread.....with the new ios4 is the Tom Tom able to multitask?ie play music, answer calls whilst still running?

Yes it can.

[rallycross]

From my iphone experience i would say anything to do with the iphone in the car is going to be rubbish, expensive, and better served using another device.


But it will look nice and shinny.


Buy a Tom Tom, halfords sell them from £90.

[bga]

I've been quite pleased with mine. I use it every day on the run from Haywards Heath to Reading so I can see the live traffic. I have it on a cradle I got off ebay and it plugs into my Parrot so I can play tunes etc. In very built up areas the in-built GPS is patchy & not as good as a discrete unit

[LocoBlade]

Ive been using it on my iphone 4 for about a month, and so far Im fairly impressed. The reason I went with the phone app rather than a dedicated unit is because my iphone already has a rotatable hardwired cradle for charging and music, and I didnt want something else cluttering up the dash that needed hiding away every time I left the car.

The GPS lock you get in the iphone 4 at least is pretty good, it locks on almost straight away (much quicker than my old Snooper Strabo), Ive never had it driving across fields getting confused and if it does lose signal then its only for a split second, although I cant vouch for built up city streets. Im not sure what the comment above was going on about though, where Shinkou said "get the HTC HD2 Windows Mobile smartphone .....the TomTom software interfaces with the true GPS chip in the phones hardware" implying that the iphone doesnt do the same because it does, it doesnt need the TomTom cradle to work.

I signed up for Traffic which seems to be fairly accurate, but Ive not used it on a standalone to compare functionality. I can also confirm you can play tunes and take calls whilst navigating, although when taking a call it does pop up a message over top asking if you want the nav to continue which you have to click OK to in order to see the full display again, and if you get a text message or lose signal it will also put a message in front of the display which can be annoying on occasions, but if it bothered you that much you could probably turn off the relevant notifications in the phone settings itself.

The only significant negative I can think of compared to a dedicated unit is the lack of speed camera updates which seem to be bundled in when TomTom decide to release updates to the software itself, there's no regular weekly or even monthly download as far as I can work out, and you can't import custom POIs in so a PocketGPSWorld database isnt an option.

Also if storage is a premium on your phone, the Western Europe app might hog a bit too much space at around 1.8Gb, and unfortunately you have to install all the maps, you cant pick and chose so if you buy western Europe, it installs the entire mapping for that region, if you want to use less space then you need to buy the UK only product which is the same price but only takes up ~300Mb. A custom install with map selector would be nice given that the phone's memory can't be expanded, and 1.8Gb is a significant chunk of a 16gb iphone especially

There was a mention of CoPilot above which I did consider, but from reading the reviews on the app store, it seems to have gone significantly downhill in recent months with lots of reports of app unreliability as well as extremely poor after sales support from the company, so I went for the more expensive (£42 against £20) TomTom app.

Edited by LocoBlade on Thursday 4th November 23:11

[mikealder]

LocoBlade said:

and you can't import custom POIs in so a PocketGPSWorld database isnt an option.

Sorry but you are wrong, it is possible to add PGPSW database files to the TT iPhone app and you DON'T need to Jail Break the iPhone in order to do it:



And just in case any of you are thinking this is "PhotoShopped" (Which it isn't)

Here is a short video of it in use.

- Mike

[JQ]

Get Skobbler - IT'S FREE

If you don't like it then pay for one. But I've been using it for 3 months and it's been excellent. Better than my old TomTom One dedicated unit.

[LocoBlade]

mikealder said:

LocoBlade said:

and you can't import custom POIs in so a PocketGPSWorld database isnt an option.

Sorry but you are wrong, it is possible to add PGPSW database files to the TT iPhone app and you DON'T need to Jail Break the iPhone in order to do it:



And just in case any of you are thinking this is "PhotoShopped" (Which it isn't)

Here is a short video of it in use.

- Mike

Not sure I deserved the curt response as it's certainly not an official feature, but glad to hear it's possible. Are you going to keep us in suspense though or can you point to somewhere that tells us how to do it?

[LocoBlade]

JQ said:

Get Skobbler - IT'S FREE

If you don't like it then pay for one. But I've been using it for 3 months and it's been excellent. Better than my old TomTom One dedicated unit.

Really? I tried Skobbler a few times and although it gets you out of a hole if you don't have anything else or if you want a second opinion on a route, I thought the front end left a lot to be desired and couldn't be relied on because it needs a data connection all the time to work. There's no maps on board and it doesn't even download maps for the entire journey, so if you lose signal then you quickly lose your map.

If you want a freebie on the iPhone though then it's worth having a look at Nav Free which has been released fairly recently, it's got a lot more features than Skobbler and does at least use it's own offline (open source) mapping stored on the phone memory. If I hadnt already bought TomTom I probably would have given it an extended test and might have stuck with it.

[mikealder]

LocoBlade said:

Not sure I deserved the curt response as it's certainly not an official feature

Sorry about that but I was in a rush (SWMBO nagging), also I stupidly left off the link to how its done, see http://www.pocketgpsworld.com//modules.php?name=Fo... - Mike

Edited by mikealder on Friday 3rd December 07:51

Edited by mikealder on Friday 3rd December 07:54

[Efbe]

JQ said:

Get Skobbler - IT'S FREE

If you don't like it then pay for one. But I've been using it for 3 months and it's been excellent. Better than my old TomTom One dedicated unit.

^^^ this.

and tbh if you want a satnav, then get a proper satnav, not just an app. the iphone screen is too small to be of much use imo

[LocoBlade]

mikealder said:

LocoBlade said:

Not sure I deserved the curt response as it's certainly not an official feature

Sorry about that but I was in a rush (SWMBO nagging), also I stupidly left off the link to how its done, see http://www.pocketgpsworld.com//modules.php?name=Fo... - Mike

No worries, cheers for the link.

Edited by LocoBlade on Friday 3rd December 22:17

[nixon1]

Thumbs up for copilot on the iphone (I had a 3G and it worked just fine).
Lately since upgrading to an android based mobile Ive been enjoying Google Maps Navigation. Its free and works well. For the casual user it is more than enough. Both beat my old TomTom Go for sure!

[Efbe]

Efbe said:

JQ said:

Get Skobbler - IT'S FREE

If you don't like it then pay for one. But I've been using it for 3 months and it's been excellent. Better than my old TomTom One dedicated unit.

^^^ this.

and tbh if you want a satnav, then get a proper satnav, not just an app. the iphone screen is too small to be of much use imo

skobler (free):

really don't see why anyone in their right mind would send so much on a satnav app for your phone, but thats just me

[kevin63]

Navfree UK & ROI is better than Skobbler as it does not need a data conection and I think it's also all round better.
You can check it out HERE for free