I wonder if Garmin realizes that the lack of integrated maps is a
deal-breaker for most folks?

I know that I am not the only one who lives in a mostly non-3G area,
with a lot of areas no coverage at all, from anybody.

I've owned a Garmin Handheld for years, so owning maps from them is not
a big deal for me at this point. But there's also a package from Open
Source Map you can get that is Garmin compatible, and free. Though
Garmin's are usually of higher quality.

I personally think the issues for the iPhone streetpilot app could be
even more significant than lack of onboard maps. I can manage with
their current mapping paradigm since I have a 2 GB data plan from AT&T
and have never even made it to 500 MB in any particular month so far.

The bread and butter for any GPS is accurate routing and as I have
owned about 5 to 8 different Garmins over the last 15+ years (going
back to the GPS 45 and GPS II and IIIs), I have come to expect routes
I can depend on.

I purchased the app yesterday to try it. I had it create my a route
from my house in Houston to my duaghters apartment in Memphis. I am
driving it this coming Sun and the trip is 604 miles door to door. The
route should take me north to Texarkana and then NE and East through
Little Rock (on I30 and I40) to Memphis. All my Garmin units and my
other iPhone mapping apps like Mapquest and Google use this route.
The Streetpilot routes me down I-10 and I-12 past New Orleans and then
north to Memphis - that is approximately 75 miles longer!

I drove around locally today with my NUVI 3790t side by side with my
iPhone 4 running the Streetpilot. You would think they both should
give me the same routes but they did not. The Streetpilot on at least
three occasions gave me (a) a tour through my neighborhood down local
streets, (b) routed me past my turn and then u turned me at the next
light back to the intersection and then turned (even with avoid
u-turns on) and (3) had me cross the street I should turn on, go down
to the next street, make a left, make a left and then come back. I am
very concerned about the increasing loss of quality of the routes on
the newer nuvis and this app. I see the same sort of issues on the
3790t sometimes.

I have yet to get the traffic stuff to work on an active route as the
traffic icon always stays gray'ed out (even tough it is green on my
3790t at the same time). And of course, as is 'customary' for iPhone
apps (lol) - there is no documentation I can find for this app to
figure out the problem so that forces me to wait on hold forever with
garmin.... anyone know of documentation?

A lot more - I have been disapointed these last 9 months with the
3790t because it as well as all the other Nuvis does recognize the
difference between travelling down a divided highway or its service
road (so if you move to the other it ignores you). Now garmin is
telling me they will be fixing it but not on any of the current units
- for the last 9 months they were telling me it would be fixed on the
3790t.

Luckily for me (lol) - I just ordered a 2011 Prius IV with a sunroof
(which forces me also to take the navigation unit). So when it comes
hopefully this summer once Toyota starts shipping them again, the
above becomes a mute point for that car.

Joel


On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 11:50:10 -0700, Anthony Guzzi
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I wonder if Garmin realizes that the lack of integrated maps is a
>deal-breaker for most folks?
>
>I know that I am not the only one who lives in a mostly non-3G area,
>with a lot of areas no coverage at all, from anybody.
>
>I've owned a Garmin Handheld for years, so owning maps from them is not
>a big deal for me at this point. But there's also a package from Open
>Source Map you can get that is Garmin compatible, and free. Though
>Garmin's are usually of higher quality.