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'MobileNavigator North America' Adds Live Traffic as In App Purchase

Basically on the map you'll see alert icons, and color indicators for traffic. One of my big gripes on NAVIGON is you can't interact with the map, but after you dance through some menus you can eventually get more info about the traffic issue. You can also see a list of traffic issues in your area, or along a planned route in list form.

If you plan a route that's affected by a traffic issue, it will route around it. I haven't encountered a traffic problem coming up in-route and whether it will reroute on the fly or not.

I'm working on a video showing some of this.
 
dagomike said:
Basically on the map you'll see alert icons, and color indicators for traffic. One of my big gripes on NAVIGON is you can't interact with the map, but after you dance through some menus you can eventually get more info about the traffic issue. You can also see a list of traffic issues in your area, or along a planned route in list form.

If you plan a route that's affected by a traffic issue, it will route around it. I haven't encountered a traffic problem coming up in-route and whether it will reroute on the fly or not.

I'm working on a video showing some of this.
Click to expand...

I've been rerouted on the fly before... :)
 
So far I have been very happy with the traffic setup. Even shows closed roads in my area. That is rather handy for me as the TomTom I had was not that good with the traffic
 
Jape said:
Yep i am.... my only qualm with the application is poor documentation, and I wish the car (traffic) icon showed up all the time.
Click to expand...

That would be very nice. Otherwise, if you want to see traffic alerts not on your route, you have to go digging through menus. It would be even nicer if I could select traffic alert icons directly on the map.
 
Thanks all for the information.

I agree re poor documentation on how to use or what to expect.

I accidently noticed the 3 little car type pictures in the upper left of the screen and clicked on it to find the traffic issues in the area. It gave information of type of problem but that was it.

I had expected that if I were in route it would automatically pop up showing the issue and show if you were being rerouted.

LOL I guess I need to go in search of a traffic problem and establish a route and see what happens.
 
I used the Live Traffic yesterday on my hour trip during rush hour. The traffic notification was pretty accurate. The Live Traffic recommendation changed color from black to red and showed the distance in miles on when I would be approaching that traffic.

As soon as it showed 0 miles I could either see the traffic ahead of me or I was in the midst of the slow down. I was very impressed with the accuracy.
 
In Navigon, if you enable the automatic traffic rerouting, then if there's traffic, Navigon will say "Recalculating route due to traffic" or something similar, and then it changes your route. This happens on the fly as you're driving. I've found it to be pretty useful a couple of times.

Of course it's only going to be as accurate as the traffic data they're buying. Navigon isn't creating the data, they're just buying it, so it may be more accurate and up-to-date in some areas and times than others. I can vouch for it working well in the Boston area during the daytime.
 
Navigon and live traffic work great for me. I live in the NYC area and have regular commute on I-495. Navigon has been able to always re-route to roads with less traffic. And I never lose the GPS lock unless inside a tunnel. Love this thing!! :)
 
trainguy and bilboa - - I have an iPhone 3G. Would Navigon, used with the TomTom cradle (for a GPS-reception boost) be the best bet for me?
thanks, malch
 
malch said:
trainguy and bilboa - - I have an iPhone 3G. Would Navigon, used with the TomTom cradle (for a GPS-reception boost) be the best bet for me?
thanks, malch
Click to expand...

Navigon worked great for me on my 3G.

As far as I know though, no GPS programs other than TomTom will currently take advantage of the GPS chip in the TomTom cradle. I personally have found the iPhone's builtin GPS to be adequate, but YMMV.
 
malch said:
trainguy and bilboa - - I have an iPhone 3G. Would Navigon, used with the TomTom cradle (for a GPS-reception boost) be the best bet for me?
thanks, malch
Click to expand...

Will jump in here on this....

My dad has my 1.5 year old 3G 16gb iPhone, and it works 99% of the time with no signal acquisition issues. He lives in south Louisiana, so there's not a whole lot of 'downtown' big building and/or obstructed sky driving. Has been using Navigon since early July.

I will say that he's never seen a traffic update in any of the Louisiana cities so far....good thing he got it added for free (as we all share an iTunes account username/password).

Traffic has worked quite well around the big city areas of Texas. Still doesn't beat listening to a local news radio station that updates traffic every 10 minutes, from 5am to 7pm every day (except weekends) though.
 
I was reading a earlier press release about Navigon Traffic and it stated:

The Traffic Live feature will poll one million cars and trucks across the United States, comparing their speeds against the expected speed for a stretch of roadway. If the actual speeds are slower than expected, the Navigon app will direct other drivers to an alternate route. Other sensors, such as traffic cameras, speed sensors and conventional traffic messages, are also used.
Click to expand...

Is this true with the current feature? I don't see them claiming this in the current release notes.
 
bilboa said:
As far as I know though, no GPS programs other than TomTom will currently take advantage of the GPS chip in the TomTom cradle
Click to expand...

dagomike said:
The TomTom kit appears to provide GPS to all GPS apps I have.
Click to expand...

This is what I'd love to have corroborated, one way or the other. Does anyone know for sure: does the TomTom kit boost the GPS reception of other apps (eg., Navigon)?
thanks again for your help,
malch
 
I think Google maps defaults to a less detailed level because it's not designed for driving, and does not automatically notify you when it is not getting a gps signal and is instead using cell phone tower triangulation. So, for example, it's willing to guess your location within a, say, 300 foot radius. If you're not moving, that's often all you need. But the car navigation apps quite rightly demand a lot more accuracy, because they need to be able to tell you exactly when to turn, not where the nearest starbuck's is. I think that's why folks often experience Navigon or TomTom not working when google maps does. Can't be sure that's what's causing your experience, but it might be.

eugarps said:
My experience with Navigon has not been all that good. It keeps losing the GPS signal. No, it's not the phone, because Google Maps found me even inside a building. I'll be under an open sky in an area of low buildings and the red GPS warning will pop up. This happened most recently on the Capitol Beltway around DC in my Tundra pickup.

It's kind of a pain, because I don't have nav built into that vehicle. I'm shopping for a Delorme PN-40 now. The problem will be solved with that. Had I known Navigon would be unreliable in my truck, I'd have saved to money and put it toward the PN-40.

My experience, YMMV.

Bill
Click to expand...
 
malch said:
This is what I'd love to have corroborated, one way or the other. Does anyone know for sure: does the TomTom kit boost the GPS reception of other apps (eg., Navigon)?
thanks again for your help,
malch
Click to expand...

The TomTom car kit's enhanced gps apps works for any gps-using iPhone app. TomTom's website says so, everyone who's tested it says so (check youtube), and it has improved the signal for me using G-Map East, GPS-Drive, and Google Maps. MotionX GPS LTE (a free app) gives you a radius of accuracy in feet, and connected to the car kit, it reports an accuracy to within 30-50 feet, whereas I never got an accuracy without the kit of better than about 75 feet, and frequently had an accuracy of only within 125 feet or worse.

Nav apps are often carefully "tuned" to improve on the chip's signal's accuracy by anticipating your location from the direction you are going in, the location of streets, and so forth. Other apps might not be as well tuned for the car kit as TomTom's (I suspect that 's the case with GPS-Drive, which a couple of times has gotten a bit wonky while using the car kit.) But when the iPhone's docked in the car kit, it gets it's gps info from the kit regardless of app.
 
tstreete said:
The TomTom car kit's enhanced gps apps works for any gps-using iPhone app
Click to expand...

thanks very much for this. I can now safely get Navigon (which most people seem to me to prefer), but with the TomTom car kit (for better reception).
Cheers, malch
 
malch said:
This is what I'd love to have corroborated, one way or the other. Does anyone know for sure: does the TomTom kit boost the GPS reception of other apps (eg., Navigon)?
thanks again for your help,
malch
Click to expand...

I said it somewhere else around here. I put my phone in airplane mode and get no GPS reception. Plug the car kit in, and I get reception. Did it on NAVIGON, G-Map, CoPilot, TomTom, TomTom's kit utility.

Like tstreete said, TomTom says so, so does everyone who actually has the kit and apps.
 
dagomike said:
I said it somewhere else around here. I put my phone in airplane mode and get no GPS reception. Plug the car kit in, and I get reception. Did it on NAVIGON, G-Map, CoPilot, TomTom, TomTom's kit utility.

Like tstreete said, TomTom says so, so does everyone who actually has the kit and apps.
Click to expand...

Do you have a link to where TomTom says so? I'm not saying it isn't true, but I couldn't find it on their website. Here is a link to the car kit:
http://www.tomtom.com/products/product.php?ID=1019&Category=2&Lid=4
I don't see anything in the product description which says it will work with other Nav programs. Thank you.
 
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