Well their prices are insane. You can buy a whole new dedicated gps unit for the 3 year subscription price. If they offered a one time fee of $30 or so they would make way more money.
The software isn't improved. There are some licensing issues. The N810 GPS is also crap. But you can get a 2nd hand N800 car mount kit, or a cheap BT GPS unit + 2nd hand Navicore 2007 license pretty cheap -- together for say 50 EUR/GBP/USD.
I don't understand the negativity; is it just because it's not free? It works just fine with my N800 and external GPS. Far better satisfaction than several other maemo apps I've tried.
The routing algorithm sucks, and their map updates are hopelessly infrequent given the subscription costs.
There is a road I travel that is about 10km long; at the end of the road is my destination. Literally.
The limit on this road is 100km/h. Wayfinder would have me leave this road and take an alternative road that is also 100km/h but is longer and goes through a town at 50km/h and ends up at the same position as if I drove straight on.
I can get a third of the way along this road with wayfinder still insisting that I turn around and take the longer and slower route.
And this is just one example. Current maps and decent routing are the key requirements for gps software, and wayfinder has neither.
Depends on why Vodafone bought Wayfinder in the first place.
Don't forget Wayfinder bought Navicore in the past.
So there is a niche product due to an acquisition by an acquisition.
Originally Posted by
Basic route finding is hard to sell with Google giving away Google Maps Mobile, but Wayfinder is promoted (1) on the basis of turn-by-turn directions, along (2) with a database of more than 3m points of interest and (3) some online collaboration tools so you can share your route with friends and family.
(Numbers & emphasis by me.)
These are the 3 arguments according to The Register.
Originally Posted by
Points of interest are all very well, but it's not useful to know where the nearest chemist is unless you also know if it's open - information which Wayfinder reckons it can provide, and Vodafone probably feels it can charge for, one way or another.
POI Google Maps has too, with information such as opening times. Its free.
One can also import and export POI from/to other devices such as TomTom, Garmin, and Google Maps.
Vodafone can give this service to their current customers for free. I don't think theres much money for them in this case.
And ofcourse they're not happy to support a legacy, niche product. Maybe if the new tablets are going to be less a niche product...
I am pretty sure... that the next generation tablet will have nokia maps and do away with wayfinder.
I suspect this is the way for Nokia to go as well. Nokia Maps has come a long way and is a much better product than Wayfinder. Nokia Maps 3.0 will allow users to share POI's and routes easily between the desktop and the mobile device. Nokia needs to leverage the work they've done with Ovi and Maps and extend it to the next tablet. Hell, they need to extend it to the current N8x0 as well.
Here in NL Vodafine is making an 'App Store' called 'Application Manager' or something like that. Applications such as Wayfinder are good entries for them to create profit.
