Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Hey all, I've been a tablet user for about 4 months and I frequently experience what can only be described at GPS envy. That is to say, whenever I see a friend with a GPS device, I marvel at how they payed a fraction of what I payed for my n810 but get directions for free that don't require an internet connection. Gee, what a revolutionary idea, Wayfinder! The only thing the other guys charge extra for is traffic.

So my idea? Send a petition over to the folks at Wayfinder to create an update that allows free turn by turn navigation. I mean, virtually every tablet user visits ITT, so getting users to sign wouldn't be hard.

Any thoughts?

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

I get pretty good navigation directions from Maemo mapper. I don't think that "pretty much every tablet user visits ITT" -- statistics supposedly refute that. I don't think a petition is necessary or desirable.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Well, er, since the number of tablets sold is somewhere in the 500,000 to 1,000,000 range, and itT has about ~18,000 registered users, that really doesn't pan out at all

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

You get non-internet connecting routing if you register Wayfinder afaik. If your problem is that it's expensive to register, then that's a different matter.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

You have one week free trial. After that you'll see that wayfinder is quite useless.
E.g., my free trial led me through a tortuos 30km route of very narrow mountain streets when I later discovered there was a straight route of about 5km, and that was after telling me it couldn't find a route for the previous 20km.
Couple that with unclear and sometimes late indications, the program quitting by itself some meters before telling me the correct motorway exit, outdated maps and you'll abandon your idea about a petition.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Ιndeed. Ι have a paid licence but it's so bad that I almost never use it. Even when it doesn't crash it's too slow to be usable while driving.

I don't think there's much hope for improvement on that front, unless the whole thing is rewritten from scratch as a native application (guess what the current one's written in, explains a lot doesn't it?)

I'd pay good money for a maemo port of TomTom though (and I already own a GO). Perhaps we should petition that instead?

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Now I would sign that^ petition. :)

I'm thinkin' it would be relatively easy for TomTom to do...

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

That would probably be easy, yes. The GO also runs Linux on an ARM CPU. I think the major difference is that the GO is using just a framebuffer as display while the NIT uses an X-server. And I don't know if TT uses the ARM in big endian or little endian mode (that's easy to find out though). All in all, shouldn't be much trouble, presumably.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

A month ago I visited my parents, who had purchased TomTom One. In that area (mostly forest and farmland...) in Finland the TomTom maps are full of errors so that the guiding instructions are completely wrong. In one area TomTom is asking to go to a "road" where there is no road at all!

The same road database errors exist in Google maps as well as Wayfinder maps. (So the Nokia Maps (Wayfinder) has no advantage there.)

Actually their purpose was to use GPS navigator when walking in forest (hunting, etc.). For that purpose the TomTom (or any other car navigation GPS...) is completely useless. I had my N810 with MaemoMapper and Finland topographic maps and they were very impressed. Next time I go there they asked to bring them one N810... even when I tried to told that the GPS is not exactly that good (fix time...), but regardless they still insisted to have one. Also my sisters husband who saw it said he wanted to buy my N810 on the spot! He asked if I could bring him as well one, but hasn't confirmed yet. (We asked the N810 price on local Nokia shop and they asked like 470Euros... :eek: So purchasing it locally there is out of question. :rolleyes:)

As a summary, not even "professional" GPS navigator can overcome the restrictions of poor maps. Second, not everyone is needing a "hold hand and guide me" type detailed instructions when driving... just a map showing current position and roads nearby is adequate, at least for me. For that purpose MaemoMapper is perfect... and is suitable for "off the road" use like hunting, hiking, geocaching, etc.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

TomTom and other car navigation systems are indeed useless as soon as you leave the roads. When you try to leave the road you'll notice that the navigation software will try to put you on the nearest road (which is kind of funny when you're driving on a temporary bypass due to road work and TT happily shows you driving along the "normal" road 50 meters away.. :)).

But this goes both ways - the vector maps that makes them useless for outback navigation also makes it possible to do offline routing and re-routing, to know about speed limits, one-way roads, bike-only roads etc.

Then again, no software is better than the maps.. and TomTom get their maps from TeleAtlas (as do many other navigation systems), which again buy from different map makers in different countries, which again usually buys maps from local authorities. And if these last ones aren't putting in the latest or correct or complete information then there's not much TT can do at their end (but read below). For example, where I live the maps have _no_ information about one-way, non-motorized etc. That's why I so much appreciate TT's _excellent_ route recalculation function.

In their later versions TomTom has actually done something to help about this common problem.. there's now a 'layer' function which means that you can install 'patches' to their maps (on your own device), and even share these patches with others.

But as soon as you get off the road, or even just walk by foot in a city, an application like Maemo Mapper is much better. And sometimes it's much better for road navigation too because in some areas it helps a lot to be able to switch between numerous different map sources (satellite pictures, openstreetmaps, ve maps etc.)

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Forgot to mention but Yahoo maps have the roads correct on those particular spots I mentioned in my previous post... Who does Yahoo have as their map source?

TomTom map correction: I tried to use this map correction feature on TomTom when I was experimenting with it. I put there missing piece of road to connect about 20 meters that broke apart one road... but at least it didn't correct the routing at that time. I also submitted the correction to TomTom by using the TomToms built in update function... maybe it gets corrected sometimes soon?

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

By looking at the debugging output I suspect that under the hood wayfinder is a java application.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

In the UK, one can buy GPS units made specifically for hiking, etc., with what we call OS (Ordnance Survey) maps installed. These show topographical features as well as roads, buildings, etc.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

I use Wayfinder all the time, before it I used Tom Tom on a Palm TX. I can't differentiate between them in speed of operation or mapping accuracy - neither is exactly 100% in the mapping area but speedwise both work plenty fast enough for turn by turn navigation in London.

And the price for a 3 year license doesn't strike me as bad. Updating Tom Tom's maps was a lot more expensive.

Wayfinder's not perfect - if only there was a British female voice instead of plummy Christopher - but it's as good as any other software on a non-dedicated platform.

I have happy memories of Tom Tom begging me to 'turn left immediately' while I was driving through the Loire Valley. I didn't because on my immediate left was the 200 metre wide River Loire - and the nearest bridge was at least 10km ahead of me.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

there is a british female voice for wayfinder...Carinna Du Plessis

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

yea, but Carinna scares the hell outta me!!

I think she's south african or something - the american bird is not bad to listen too
I did have a look a while agao to see if it was possible to hack tomtom vioces to wayfinder, as they are only ogg files, but not enough matched.

My main gripe with wayfinder in the UK is the traffic, works great most of the time, but not all of the details are updated or accurate enough.
about 5 weeks ago a couple of motorway junctions were closed overnight for about 3 days, but on wayfinder those sections between sliproads are marked as closed still, and all day as well. another junction where you are diverted about 3 miles is not even included.

Don't suppose it's wayfinder's fault, more the data provider, but it's irritating still.

I also agree that the wayfinder 3-year deal in the UK including traffic is very competitive - cheaper than updating my garmin without traffic!

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

South African, actually. There's even an Afrikaans version available.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

See also /usr/share/navicore/*.zip

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

I too think that the Wayfinder Maps application is way over-priced for the quality.

In three spots in Texas (Houston, San Antonio and College Station) there were bad street errors (mispellings, wrong connectivity, wrong names).

Even worse is that their maps show streets that aren't really streets. It showed a quarter-mile long drive onto our farm in Marlin, Texas (on private property!) as an unlabled road!

Since the US map takes 6+ hours to download for an update during which time you cannot use the device, it makes the prospect of getting meaningful updates nil.

I'd rather buy a mainstream GPS than get half-fast software that is overly expensive.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Which is no surprise because the maps for Wayfinder and Google are both provided by TeleAtlas. TeleAtlas employees draw these maps based on their ground and satellite photographs.

TomTom does run on the ARM but TomTom is now a competitor of Nokia. On OpenTom.org are some hardware specifications about all the TomToms available on the market.

Since Nokia acquired Navteq I believe they're going to use this technology in the future, and I expect Nokia to port Nokia Maps to the NIT.

If you fire up Navicore from a console you'll see all kind of errors containing filename.class. From that alone its pretty clear its a Java application.

I don't like the N810's GPS, so I am using a Wayfinder BT with Sirf III GPS chipset.

I'm using Sara (US/female) BTW.

To purchase Wayfinder/Navicore you need a credit card.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

You can download these maps using e.g. wget.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

You're obviously not British;-)

She is South African and uses different terminology from English. For example, she calls a 'roundabout' a 'road circle'. She also has a heavy accent. An American voice is just as British in that case, 'rotary' and all.

As I said, there is no British female voice.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Agreed. Her accent and terminology aren't British. Thats why I chose Sara. The Dutch Zita also has a distinctive accent. Not suitable for me.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Blimey, that's interesting. /usr/libexec/navicore-navigator contains a lot of code, but it mostly seems to be setup/licencing etc. Unfortunately, just changing a single word doesn't seem to work as well as it used to: I think the map data is tied somehow a lot more closely into the contents of that binary.

The newest version also seems to contain lots of references to "atlantis": I wonder if that's either some internally used JVM or some other part of the cross-platform library.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

OK you get envy because they have a GPS that was cheaper then your N810 well I get asked about 1000 questions when I wipe out me n810. I mean can there $150 gps play games, surf the web have a web cam? Need I go on?

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

I believe "Atlantis" is the what it names which ever Map DB you chose as default.

In any event, a real shortcoming Wayfinder has for some is the lack of customization. Which is ironic considering the open source nature of the device that it is running on...

Conversely, I have always been able to add my own voices, start-up/shut down screens, change the menu order, and even use my own car icon no matter if TomTom was running on A WinMo PDA, Palm, or its own PND.

What has been most disappointing to me having used Navicore/Wayfinder since day 1 on my N800 is their lack of community presence and dismal on-line support.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

I think Atlantis is the default map when you have no maps installed, i.e. the empty map.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

I can't really say that wayfinder is so bad that it requires a petition. My old Garmin iQue was definitely better in many respects, but I have been using wayfinder to drive around for the past months, and found it quite usable (German and French maps). Maps have some errors, but this is also the case for other GPS devices I have tried. The voice direction is quite usable. The on-screen indications are quite good.

To the original posters: routing will require an internet connection if you want traffic data. Maybe that is your problem?

I did not realise that "Carina Du Plessis" was from South Africa (never been there). I wondered why she called "roundabouts" "traffic circles"...

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

How are the voices done in Wayfinder? In TomTom they are just a set of ogg/vorbis files with recorded phrases. Record your own, and with a bit of fiddling you can have e.g. your spouse telling you when to turn.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Are you nuts? With a LOT of fiddling I've finally got my spouse to leave the navigation to the machine! :p

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

I just brought the license yesterday, and the software seemed quite good.

On another note, I also brought a nokia sucker and was very impressed how quickly the tablet got a lock. It seemed much quicker being vertical than horizontal.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

didnt realize she wasnt british....never really heard anyone from south africa speak...i am from the states and a roundabout is a roundabout none of this rotary business...LOL the american sara voice sounds too snooty and *****y for me LOL

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

I live in Springfield, Massachusetts, as you can see from my label at the top. More often than not, the signs I've seen call them a rotary here in the United States. I've drive all over the US from Massachusetts to California and back over the northern I-80 route and the southern I-40/I-46 (old Route 66) route... and it's been called a rotary every time I've looked. Regionally, they're more often than not called a 'rotary' here in the US, despite the word you and your acquaintances prefer to use--which isn't incorrect (I'm sure it's used), but to say that there's 'none of this rotary business' is not just inaccurate but very wrong. :P

Also! Almost literally in my back yard (I live just over the border into Springfield next to East Longmeadow) is one of the most famous and dangerous rotaries in the country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Lo..._Massachusetts

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

I used the 7 day test licence end of January in Sweden (between Göteborg and the Vänern) and my conclusion was that it is close to unusable due to map errors (proposing forest paths as roads), applications errors (especially regarding roundabouts and more complex junctions) and localization errors (distracting strange sentences). I won't compare it to my Volvos builtin navigation system but in relation to TomToms (and the like) it is way overpriced, especially because I provide all the hardware.

And last but not least: I provided detailed feedback to them (Wayfinder), I received a response early March with excuses that they haven't replied yet and that they would have a look. Since then: Nothing.

I think it is a pity for both us users as well as Nokia, because the NITs could provide many additional capabilities for integration of navigation, internet, user provided content (maps, corrections, routes, ...). Instead there is just a third class expensive navigation.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

The problem with reporting map errors is that Wayfinder or TomTom then will have to report the map errors back to TeleAtlas or whatnot, and that company again has to take action to go back to their provider, which more often than not will have to go to the local authorities for the area in question and see if they can get an update. And, as this last link are just a bunch of public servants or bureaucrats nothing will happen in years. Not to mention all the details that can get lost between your report and the final destination.

No wonder nothing seems to ever come out of reporting map errors to the navigation software vendors. Maybe it helps, but only very long term.

What will not happen is that TomTom or Wayfinder updates the map themselves, based on your report.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Ah, so the problem is always the local authorities... :P

TeleAtlas (TomTom) makes the maps. They provide these maps commercially via license to several corporations including TomTom, Google, Wayfinder (Navicore), and others.

I don't have any proof local authorities make the maps for TeleAtlas.

So if you find errors in a map you contact one of these corporations who licensed the maps (or TeleAtlas directly) and they'll verify it and correct it in their next update. TomTom provides a nice platform for customers to provide updates. You'd think TomTom is able to direct such information quickly to TeleAtlas given they're now the same corporation.

The voice navigation are indeed OGG Vorbis. You could try to replace them. In fact, maybe I do this, because the message "the GPS is not correctly placed" is sometimes quite embarassing when in a building. With data on SD (mmc2) partitioned as ext2 with Sara (EN_US_FEMALE) as voice the directory is: /media/mmc2/map/navicore/sounds/sound_eng/Sara -- YMMV

That said, if you want to make a petition you have to outline the problems you petition against first else you have no argument.

Here are my proposals to add to the list:
* Big map errors occuring while navigating in but not limited to Sweden, Finland.
* Some voices including but not limited to United Kingdom aren't native.
* Wayfinder's customer support replies slow to questions.
* Wayfinder only accept credit card payment; not bank transfer or Paypal. This costed them at least one customer.
* The Java application is an ugly port of the S80 version for Symbian.
* Possibly, the ToS invade privacy.
* The N810 GPS is bad at getting a lock influencing the performance of Wayfinder.

Once there is a consensus about the list (ie. several people agree with an entry) we can start to put it online, allow people to sign it, and then send it to Wayfinder. Please only sign the petition if you are a (potential) customer.

Please note: the last problem isn't directly their fault.

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Check the 'about tomtom (or navigator)' in the setup page when running tomtom. But that's only part of the story. TeleAtlas uses different companies in different regions. But it's true that they also now correct their maps by having their own driving-around teams (I know that at least the partner used by TeleAtlas for one region used to do the same in the past, and may still be doing this).

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Well I don't agree that nearly all IT, user come here. I do think it's alot more than 18k, I have been reading ITT, for about 6 months now (as long as i've had my n810), and just registered so I could reply your comment.

P.S. This site has been the most helpful website i've ever been too, every problem or question i've had about my IT, has either already been answered or solved!

Re: Petition against Wayfinder?
 

Overall it's worked very well for me. As I said previously, I suspect there are regional performance differences.

Also, I have been reporting Wayfinder issues directly to maemo for some time now and have seen some of them resolved already. However, I would not be averse to more competition... which should be forthcoming since Nokia was approved to buy Navteq.

Here in Texas we call them "traffic circles" :rolleyes: