Am I the only one pissed about no turn by turn GPS functionality

[fkntotalkaos]

Yes, I am sorry, I bought the 3G iphone replacing my first Generation for the GPS turn by turn function. I patiently waited for the release of 2.1, search the internet daily, and read the article that was done by Tom Tom. Why had Apple not taken care of this? G1 will have a better GPS as it sits than the 3G iphone, and that make me angry. WHEN is this going to be fixed Apple? I no i don't want to hear about all the people who use Garmin, Tom Tom portable devices in their car. I used a treo 650 and a GPS unit to the phone. I want a GPS on my phone that provides as Apple said, Turn by Turn Navigaion....

 

[Romanesq]

Get a GPS....

This turn by turn obsession I find very silly. What is a Tom Tom these days, about $100?

But your phone is suppose to do everything?

How can you use the phone and GPS turn by turn anyway?
People would be crashing into guard rails.

Society has lost its mind.

 

[Sdashiki]

howz about that theres no real turn by turn for OSX period?

 

[muckymucky]

yea those earlier iphone-GPS-Navigation App rumors (i.e. tom tom's iphone app) got me really excited but now it seems less and less likely. a real navi app will complete my iphone experience~ =*(

 

[Flhusky]

I for 1 would never buy a device based on vaporware...
While it would be nice to have, I can't see it replacing my standalone GPS.

Besides from previous reports you would only get 2-4 hours max before the iPhone died since it won`t charge and run apps.

 

[Aurial]

...G1 will have a better GPS as it sits than the 3G iphone, and that make me angry.

Not just the G1, all windows mobile handsets, Series 60 and UIQ3 handsets have either tomtom or Garmin XT available for them, and have for a very very long time.

I don't think I'd be stretching the imagination to say that the iPhone has the worst implimentation of GPS of any handset. It's completely useless.

For those who say it's pointless having nab software on your phone, well there are several million happy users out there who would readily disagree with you. Most of these software solutions have some call handling features built in anyway.

With the power drain issue, from first appearances this seems to be due to the software and chip using more power than the 5 volt USB charger can provide. This could be fixed with more efficient software/firmware in the future, requiring less clock cycles, memory, etc to run the app. I know the n95 has an input voltage of 5 volts, not sure how many amps, but it excells as a satnav device and the battery charges at the same time.

 

[WhySoSerious]

Yes, I am sorry, I bought the 3G iphone replacing my first Generation for the GPS turn by turn function. I patiently waited for the release of 2.1, search the internet daily, and read the article that was done by Tom Tom. Why had Apple not taken care of this? G1 will have a better GPS as it sits than the 3G iphone, and that make me angry. WHEN is this going to be fixed Apple? I no i don't want to hear about all the people who use Garmin, Tom Tom portable devices in their car. I used a treo 650 and a GPS unit to the phone. I want a GPS on my phone that provides as Apple said, Turn by Turn Navigaion....

no, i'm pissed as well.

 

[ob81]

This turn by turn obsession I find very silly. What is a Tom Tom these days, about $100?

But your phone is suppose to do everything?

How can you use the phone and GPS turn by turn anyway?
People would be crashing into guard rails.

Society has lost its mind.

I used the turn by turn GPS on my sprint instinct to drive from Chicago to Virginia. I use the turn by turn GPS everyday since I have been in Virginia, as I don't know where anything is. Could I live with an iPhone (no turn by turn) maybe.
The issue is that people don't want to settle for less. The instinct isn't even a smart phone and it has turn by turn. Why can't the iPhone have it?

I haven't crashed By the way.

 

[fkntotalkaos]

This turn by turn obsession I find very silly. What is a Tom Tom these days, about $100?

But your phone is suppose to do everything?

How can you use the phone and GPS turn by turn anyway?
People would be crashing into guard rails.

Society has lost its mind.

It is statements like this that make me crash my head against the wall.... Did I not say my Treo does it and has for 5 years now? Did I not say that I don't want another electronic device in my car in my window? I have a BMW X5 with perfect Iphone intgration via DICE link and the Spec doc. The Iphone plays my music through the factory BMW stereo with the use of all BMW controls on the deck and steering wheel , mutes the music when i get a phone call, and resumes playback when call is over. Add GPS turn by turn voice and I have a fully functional car computer... Why would I want another device to do turn by turn navigation? My iphone has my contacts, my POI and all my music and personal information.
DOH, my phone charges when it is docked, so whoever made the comment about not lasting long running on battery, that was really idiotic...

 

[hayduke]

Pissed? No. This has never been an advertised feature. Sure, the iPhone might do any number of things in the future, but buying it and *expecting* it to have the vaporware feature isn't a good move. Sorry you're disappointed, but just about anyone could have told you to expect that.

Just read the OPs most recent post.

Simmer down now childrens.

 

[pavvento]

I agree, a lot of people here have expressed their frustration as well, so I wouldn't say that you're the only one.

 

[fkntotalkaos]

Pissed? No. This has never been an advertised feature. Sure, the iPhone might do any number of things in the future, but buying it and *expecting* it to have the vaporware feature isn't a good move. Sorry you're disappointed, but just about anyone could have told you to expect that.

Just read the OPs most recent post.

Simmer down now childrens.

"Get directions.

Get directions to wherever from wherever. View a list of turn-by-turn directions or follow a highlighted map route and track your progress with live GPS tracking." sounds like turn by turn to me.....


"Just read the OPs most recent post." please provide link as I have searched for this topic all over the net, and even read the Tom Tom stuff, stating that the iphone has a perfect GPS and hardware for this, but they are "waiting on Apple" and the SDK has nothing to do with their progress. If it is AT&T, holding this up for financial reason, then I blame Apple for being in this bad marriage with them. If it is Apple trying to make sure they get the right software, then this phone should have been held off until this was taken care of

 

[Nikhil72]

Also, the last thing to consider is that many of those other devices (Windows Mobile, Palm) have been around for a very long time. Don't assume that they received turn-by-turn GPS support right off the bat. The iPhone has only had a GPS chip for about 2 months now and furthermore, 3rd party apps couldn't even be written until a few months ago.

I would definitely love turn-by-turn on my phone too. Apple is almost certainly not going to be able to release their own app for legal reasons without a long bit of negotiation with the map data holders (including a company owned by TomTom; I somehow doubt they will eat into their own profits by licensing out data to Apple). Even the TOS of Google Maps strictly forbids Google from allowing explicit turn-by-turn within the program because the map data is licensed from map providers that either offer their own turn-by-turn service or are owned by parent companies that do.

So the short of it is that: 1) you'll just have to be patient; it's huge, in-demand market and don't let yourself think that Apple will let it go untapped...think about them making 30% off a $100-200 navigation app. That's a solid amount of influx from the otherwise low-cost App Store (and also, no complaining about that guesstimated price...I find it hard-pressed to believe that any company will release a turn-by-turn app with all maps for less than $100). 2) Don't expect Apple to be the one to provide the turn-by-turn.

Other phones (Instinct, etc.) that come integrated with turn-by-turn are not written by handset manufacturers; their software is just ported from other providers, namely TeleNAV in most cases.

 

[Jeremy1026]

"Get directions.

Get directions to wherever from wherever. View a list of turn-by-turn directions or follow a highlighted map route and track your progress with live GPS tracking." sounds like turn by turn to me.....

Which it does, it does in fact provide turn-by-turn directions. What you are bitching for is real time turn-by-turn, something that will follow you on your route and actively alert you to when to turn.

 

[fkntotalkaos]

Which it does, it does in fact provide turn-by-turn directions. What you are bitching for is real time turn-by-turn, something that will follow you on your route and actively alert you to when to turn.

so you are satisfied with this GPS? The general public is not, in fact they are pointing to this short coming in the G1 comparison.... Yes I love my Iphone... Yes I love my ipods...... Do i think the GPS is crap, sure do


3rd Party Development of GPS for 1st and 2nd generation iphone ( they are working of the software as we speak)
http://iphone-gps.blogspot.com/

 

[eplchamps0304]

a reporter claimed that the iPhone 3gs GPS was too weak to do turn by turn and was clowned when tom tom announced they had something comming. I think the reporter was onto something. From my experience the gps works well about %75 of the time. Compare it to the saMsung instincts gps and you will notice the iPhones deficiency. Beside, if it does come it won't be cheap. Be ready to pay a flat $100+ or a $10 monthly fee.

 

[jeffreyfort]

lack of turn by turn is keeping me from buying an iPhone. I use TomTom on a Treo 700P all the time. I don't want to lug a stand alone TomTom in various cars, etc. I, too, can't understand why this capability is not yet available.

 

[Jeremy1026]

so you are satisfied with this GPS? The general public is not, in fact they are pointing to this short coming in the G1 comparison.... Yes I love my Iphone... Yes I love my ipods...... Do i think the GPS is crap, sure do

I never said I was pleased that it didn't have real time. I was simply noting that you are saying that the functions advertised aren't there, when they actually are.

 

[john2006wright]

Society has lost its mind.

So true, at least there are still some of us who have perspective.

 

[cellocello]

Being able to pinpoint my location, have it track my position, show me a highly detailed photographic map with the ability to search for things around me (AND still able to route plan) is pretty good for me.

I'd rather have push than turn-by-turn, tbh.

(am I the only person that can look at a map, see where I need to go and then put the map away?)

 

[trihard]

Pissed too

I think there are plenty of us out there that are unhappy that there is no turn-by-turn for the iPhone. I think I could live with it better if we (the public) were better updated from either Apple or some of the major developers (like TomTom). Just let us know that it won't be available until December, or next year, or not coming or something. But to be completely silent about it is very annoying! We had one tidbit from Apple saying it was "complicated", and from TomTom saying they have it working on iPhone but need to see about making it work with the SDK. Come on guys -- more info! We know you have NDAs all over the place, but for the good of your consumer base, you need to be more vocal on the details.

And for all you out there that advocate just getting a separate unit, how about we then just carry around a separate calendar, a separate roll-a-decks, a separate calculator, a separate notepad, ...

 

[Aurial]

My point is that it is a complete waste of a feature. The GPS chip has absolutely no use whatsoever in its current implimentation. What does it bring to Google Maps? Nothing at all! The triangulation gets you pretty close to where you are, and how difficult is it to work out where you are on the screen from that?

So, what was the point in implimenting it if they're not going to bring out a proper satnav system?

To the people who say they don't want it, well hooray for you. There are clearly masses of people out there who do so you're not bringing anything to the table with these comments. If there wasn't a need for satnav on phones then there wouldn't be so much software available for the other platforms.

Sure, windows mobile was around for quite a while before TomTom released Navigator for it, but the first WM handset to feature GPS was the Arthemis, which had TomTom Navigator 6 and Copilot Live 7 available for it on launch, and both used the GPS.

I have no preconceptions about the price at all, TomTom for Series 60 cost in the region of £130 (not sure in $) and I have no reason to think it would be any cheaper than that for the iPhone. I don't see why someone thinks there would be a monthly subscription cost on top of that though???

I suspect that one of the issues slowing this all down is the size of the App. Although the iPhone has 8/16GB of storage, only about 1GB is allocated for storing programs, etc. Maps of the UK are about 300MB if I remember correctly, not sure what they'd be for the US but hell, its a lot bigger.

As for TomTom licensing the maps to other vendors, they already do this to their major rivals anyway so there shouldn't be any issues there. TomTom and Nokia own TeleAtlas and Navteq between them, and these are the two map providers that everyone uses. They both provide their own Satnav apps, Navigator and Nokia Maps, but they still provide maps to the likes of Garmin, Navman, Google, etc. This wouldn't have any effect on Apple licensing maps from them if they wanted to provide their own navigation software. I personally would much rather see a professional job from the likes of TomTom. It's a tough job to get it right, and Apple would certainly not succeed first time.

 

[wrinklefree]

This is the second reason I still have to carry my Blackberry on business trips. It's a must have once I get into a rental car in a unfamiliar city.

 

[vega07]

i needed turn by turn yesterday driving around westwood at night in LA yesterday. it was a pain in the arse using google maps directions. the roads were really intricate and using google directions at night is not very ideal.

my brother who was driving (with me in the passenger seat feeding him directions) ridiculed my iPhone...

 

[kdarling]

"Get directions to wherever from wherever. View a list of turn-by-turn directions or follow a highlighted map route and track your progress with live GPS tracking."

sounds like turn by turn to me

Yes, it sounds like it to a lot of people. It's purposely designed to suck you in, by listing some static items together with dynamic updates.

As time goes by, you'll notice that many of Apple's (and Jobs') statements are sleazy pairings like that, and/or attempts to throw people off the track.

Like when he said "and boy have we patented it", he meant Apple specific hardware, not the UI or multi-touch or anything like the fanboys thought... because the basics have been around for decades.

Apple / Jobs are a prime example of telling the truth and nothing but the truth... but not the whole truth. I admire their BS'ing skills, but see no honor in it.