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jediknight0

macrumors newbie
Aug 20, 2008
13
0
So, no full-time 3-D view (it's always north-facing) and no voice?

How is this any different than Google Maps then?

Is there re-routing? Doesn't say so in the description.

Where's the thumbs down emoticon when I need it?

No full-time 3D view
No "heading up" view (always north facing)
No voice (but I knew that)

It's different than google-maps because... it's less attractive?

Don't know about re-routing yet, I havn't taken a drive with it.
 

Yasic

macrumors member
Aug 6, 2008
79
0
That is great news, i live in central Europe so i cant really use this one, but finally it lets me hope for great Tomtom apps or such.

Please almighty Steve let me have all Europe GPS maps before my Xmas vacation in France. Thank you.
 

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
So, if there is no voice to tell you when to turn, etc.., then how does the program alert of an upcoming turn? Or, do you just have to see that the purple line makes a direction change and make your decision based on that?

The only difference I see between this and Google Maps is that X Map follows you (your car) around instead of having to manually pan foward, correct?
 

ZionSV

macrumors newbie
Dec 1, 2008
9
0
So, if there is no voice to tell you when to turn, etc.., then how does the program alert of an upcoming turn? Or, do you just have to see that the purple line makes a direction change and make your decision based on that?

The only difference I see between this and Google Maps is that X Map follows you (your car) around instead of having to manually pan foward, correct?

If you have 3G it's not different at all. iPhone 3G does that anyway.. :(
 

LiveForever

macrumors 6502
Dec 13, 2007
281
0
NO No, Google maps need a data/power hungry 3G or Edge connection. This doesn't. Also Google maps are hopeless for really trying to navigate around in real time. they don't update fast enough and they are very in accurate.
Try using google maps up a mountain miles form a cell tower

FOR THE LAST TIME GOOGLE MAPS DO NOT DO THIS ALREADY
 

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
NO No, Google maps need a data/power hungry 3G or Edge connection. This doesn't. Also Google maps are hopeless for really trying to navigate around in real time. they don't update fast enough and they are very in accurate.
Try using google maps up a mountain miles form a cell tower

FOR THE LAST TIME GOOGLE MAPS DO NOT DO THIS ALREADY

Well, that's your opinion, thanks. I use Google Maps all the time and I have never noticed any of the shortcomings you speak of. Perhaps it's just where I'm located. Maybe it's because your in Australia, idk.

And I can't try to use Google Maps going up a mountain, there's no mountains around here. I'll remember that if I ever encounter a mountain, I'll use G Map.
 

LiveForever

macrumors 6502
Dec 13, 2007
281
0
Twice I have used google maps to try to find somewhere in Sydney and twice it failed. I find that the maps can't update fast enough and the position updates in jerks of about 100m so I found I went past my turning but it showed I had not yet got to it. I also find it very innacurate especially when going round corners. It usually has me going through buildings or trees.

I have some of those map my trail type apps which plot your route on a map and that is running or walking. I had a look at some of the demo trails plotted on a google map and even in the US I saw that some guy had walked on water at some stage so it again was inaccurate.

See this map-if you zoom up you can see on a few occasions he walks on the river

http://pathtracks.com/users/1/paths/1 or even worse

http://pathtracks.com/users/1/paths/4-freeway-driving-ipod-touch where he drives through entire blocks of buildings in Denver. In fact he drives more through buildings than he does on a road, seriously, take a look.


I would love it if google maps was good at real time navigation but my honest experience is that it is worse than a paper map.


Sorry buy this is hopeless for real time navigation and these is my experience in Sydney.
Hopefully some real gps apps will now come out to compete with x road.

I honestly have no axe to grind in making X road a success but I need something better than Google maps and I will get a Tom Tom unit if they don't release a decent iphone navigation app for Australia
 

Dorfdad

macrumors 6502
Oct 26, 2007
474
54
No voice = useless, if I have to look at the map every 2 secs, then I rather use google maps....

I believe Apple does not allow this for some reason..

Also Im working on a review for this app as well, but I have quite a backlog of reviews!
 

MotionxxUSxx

macrumors 6502
Jul 1, 2007
408
5
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

Does this have rerouting as you drive?
 

lftrghtparadigm

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2008
462
0
Now this actually looks an app worth getting-if you live in Western USA that is.
I live in Australia so its no good for me but when I emailed the developers they assure me they are rolling out maps for the rest of the World early next year.

I have nothing to do with this crowd, honestly, but I hope it does well.

Its $23.99 which may seem lot by app store standards but I hope this doesn't put people off. The app store prices are low and that has, I think been one (the main?)reason for the fairly low standard of apps. You don't pay much and you don't get much.

I would rather pay a fair price and get something decent than fritter away a dollar here and there and end up paying a lot for pointless apps I never use.

I am surprised there has not been more fan fare as this is a true turn by turn GP S which the iphone badly needs.

So you don't need a 3G or Edge connection and can still navigate, just GPS reception. Now TOM TOM, Magellan etc should be getting worried as the threat has now become a reality.


No, $23 will doom this app into obscurity. Clearly the developer has not kept up with the App Store ins and outs. Want people to download the app? 4.99 price ceiling. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

I don't care if the App teleports you around the world, and neither does anyone else. If its over $5, forget about it, its worthless. The business model of the App store does not work with high prices, and high priced Apps sell fractionally compared to cheap apps.

Effort, R&D, Time are all exactly nil when it comes to App pricing. Cheap App = many downloads = reaching an Apps potential. Expensive App = worthless, intimidating, and ultimately will be pushed so far down the list no one will ever find or talk about it again.
 

BlaseUser

macrumors newbie
Nov 13, 2008
11
0
Twice I have used google maps to try to find somewhere in Sydney and twice it failed. I find that the maps can't update fast enough and the position updates in jerks of about 100m so I found I went past my turning but it showed I had not yet got to it. I also find it very innacurate especially when going round corners. It usually has me going through buildings or trees.

I have some of those map my trail type apps which plot your route on a map and that is running or walking. I had a look at some of the demo trails plotted on a google map and even in the US I saw that some guy had walked on water at some stage so it again was inaccurate.

See this map-if you zoom up you can see on a few occasions he walks on the river

http://pathtracks.com/users/1/paths/1 or even worse

http://pathtracks.com/users/1/paths/4-freeway-driving-ipod-touch where he drives through entire blocks of buildings in Denver. In fact he drives more through buildings than he does on a road, seriously, take a look.


I would love it if google maps was good at real time navigation but my honest experience is that it is worse than a paper map.


Sorry buy this is hopeless for real time navigation and these is my experience in Sydney.
Hopefully some real gps apps will now come out to compete with x road.

I honestly have no axe to grind in making X road a success but I need something better than Google maps and I will get a Tom Tom unit if they don't release a decent iphone navigation app for Australia

I am not sure that iPhone 3G users understand how the GPS module works; it currently operates via a polling mechanism rather than a NMEA data stream as in dedicated GPS units. This means that independent of the map retrieval mechanism - via web in the case of Google Maps or on device like G-Map - there will always be a lag and some real time inaccuracy on the iPhone 3G. If you want TBT car navigation, you're better off buying an AIO like Garmin or TomTom as they are really cheap and effective. It will take some time for the iPhone to get usable GPS navigation.
 

hexonxonx

macrumors 601
Jul 4, 2007
4,610
1
Denver Colorado
I don't care if the App teleports you around the world, and neither does anyone else. If its over $5, forget about it, its worthless. The business model of the App store does not work with high prices, and high priced Apps sell fractionally compared to cheap apps.

The app is $19. This will not stop people from buying it whatsoever. There have been plenty of apps $9.95 and above that have sold very well. BeatMaker is an excellent example and it still is listed as one of the stores best sellers after all these months.

Look at all the people buying Rolando and SimCity. Both of these games are $9.99, I bought both of them yesterday and so did others. Others bought just one and yet it is over your supposed $5 limit.
 

DigMe

macrumors 6502
Sep 9, 2008
316
6
Exactly right. I can think of many apps over five bucks that have sold very well. Perhaps the poster is voicing his own feelings on the matter moreso than the general reality of things.
 

benfica88

macrumors regular
Nov 21, 2008
203
9
I am not sure that iPhone 3G users understand how the GPS module works; it operates via a polling mechanism rather than a NMEA data stream as in dedicated GPS units. This means that independent of the map retrieval mechanism - via web in the case of Google Maps or on device like G-Map - there will always be a lag and some real time inaccuracy on the iPhone 3G. If you want TBT car navigation, you're better off buying an AIO like Garmin or TomTom as they are really cheap and effective. It will take some time for the Iphone to get usable GPS navigation.

http://www.infineon.com/dgdl/PMB252...71e07&fileId=db3a304316f66ee8011782518d4a1e08

Iphone gps chipset. Tomtom uses the same in certain models...
 

dontwalkhand

macrumors 603
Jul 5, 2007
6,464
3,023
Phoenix, AZ
No, $23 will doom this app into obscurity. Clearly the developer has not kept up with the App Store ins and outs. Want people to download the app? 4.99 price ceiling. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

I don't care if the App teleports you around the world, and neither does anyone else. If its over $5, forget about it, its worthless. The business model of the App store does not work with high prices, and high priced Apps sell fractionally compared to cheap apps.

Effort, R&D, Time are all exactly nil when it comes to App pricing. Cheap App = many downloads = reaching an Apps potential. Expensive App = worthless, intimidating, and ultimately will be pushed so far down the list no one will ever find or talk about it again.

I guess your Tom Tom is also worth only $4.99. This is a good price for a full blown GPS app (minus voice of course)
 

BlaseUser

macrumors newbie
Nov 13, 2008
11
0

benfica88

macrumors regular
Nov 21, 2008
203
9
Yes the iPhone GPS chipset is perfectly capable; the problem is in the way the SDK and / or the OS works. It does not expose the NMEA data stream to the applications; the only way to get position is via the rather wacky polling mechanism. Apple may change this at some point ....;)

That's what most of use are hoping. If Telenav admitted to an app, then this has to happen!
 

scott99

macrumors 6502a
Oct 30, 2007
714
51
The app is $19. This will not stop people from buying it whatsoever. There have been plenty of apps $9.95 and above that have sold very well. BeatMaker is an excellent example and it still is listed as one of the stores best sellers after all these months.

Look at all the people buying Rolando and SimCity. Both of these games are $9.99, I bought both of them yesterday and so did others. Others bought just one and yet it is over your supposed $5 limit.

I have to agree 100%. I think a lot of people would buy a full blown speech turn-by turn GPS for the iPhone. If it were a 1-time $100 cost, I know I would do it in a heartbeat. The reason why they put GPS capabilities in phones in the first place, is to lesson the amount of gadgets people carry around, sorta like putting an iPod in a cell phone. I really believe the reason this hasn't happened is the almighty dollar. The iPhone has the capabilities (hell, crappy free phones have voice turn by turn GPS already), they have created a Navigation section for iPhone apps, so obviously they want this to happen. I think the hold up is money. Why make the GPS in the iPhone 3G a selling point, if it's not going to be used ? I think it will happen eventually, and people WILL pay for it, even if it's a one time payment for $100.
 

DreamPod

macrumors 65816
Mar 15, 2008
1,265
188
Actually, thier videos clearly show that during the map view if the arrow button below the "+" and "-" buttons is pressed, it shows a pseudo-3D view (not a photo-realistic view, that is only available for a few intersections). Also, ALL the videos show the "heading up" view rather than the standard Google "north up" view.

The actual app doesn't even have the arrow button and doesn't do "heading up" view.

As the app is right now, it's a poor-looking local-data google maps.

What videos are you talking about? The iPhone G-Maps page on their website has no videos that I can find. None of the screenshots show "heading up" view, all of them show north-up. And the 3D-view pics are all obviously ones that fit their specifications that they are complicated intersections where you might need extra help figuring out where to go.
 

redman042

macrumors 68040
Jun 13, 2008
3,063
1,657
This looks like a promising start for iPhone navigation. $20 is not too much to ask for true navigation software, even if it doesn't work as well as a Tom Tom. Check your expectations before you buy this though. This is a company with an unknown track record in GPS software. Even the big boys like Magellan and Garmin struggle to get their UI's and routing engines fine-tuned to everyone's satisfaction. G-Map looks pretty, and real time directions are definitely a step up on the iPhone, but I have a feeling there will be plenty of shortcomings and glitches when it comes to the routing engine and POI's. Some of the comments are already indicating this.

I won't be buying the app simply because I already have built-in GPS in my car, so at most I just need to supplement with Google Maps on my phone. But I'm glad to see a program like this on the market and looking forward to future updates. At some point I will buy one if it's good enough, for when I'm in company or rental cars.

One thing I wonder about with this app: Where did they get their map data? Navteq or Teleatlas? Or someone else? The source of the map data has a huge bearing on the usability of the GPS program. Also, companies typically have to pay pretty big licensing fees to these data suppliers, so I don't know how G-Map is selling this software for only $20.
 

BlaseUser

macrumors newbie
Nov 13, 2008
11
0
One thing I wonder about with this app: Where did they get their map data? Navteq or Teleatlas? Or someone else? The source of the map data has a huge bearing on the usability of the GPS program. Also, companies typically have to pay pretty big licensing fees to these data suppliers, so I don't know how G-Map is selling this software for only $20.

Map source is apparently Navteq according to the XROAD website. Licensing fees for mobile GPS map data on PDAs are typically heavily discounted (I guess they're supposed to make up with volume sales!).
 

jediknight0

macrumors newbie
Aug 20, 2008
13
0
You can't find the videos because they sneakily removed their link to the "How to use" page from the menu.

There are just over 20 separate videos on the following page :
http://www.xroadgps.com/Maps/GMapforiPhone/HowtoUseGMapforiPhone/tabid/2465/Default.aspx

They also removed the wording about "heading up" from thier quickstart guide after I pointed it out to them. Of course they spend thier time removing all evidence without replying to my "I want my money back" email.

These people are slimeballs.
 

stockcerts

macrumors 65816
Jun 29, 2007
1,301
29
Pensacola, FL
When is a Tier 1 provider like Tom Tom or Garmin going to have something available for us? Not having turn by turn navigation with voice prompts has been my only real dissapointment with the Iphone.
 
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