Mine will offer up to three routes, though often only one. One trip to Coos Bay I decided not to take the 5 back home, and elected to take the 101 up the coast. (BIG mistake! My five-hour drive turned into an eight-hour one. But it was pretty, and there was a bridge I wanted to drive on.) Once I crossed the bridge into Washington the GPS wanted to take me west. I looked at the map and saw that I could go east. I turned east, and after a few attempts to get me to turn around the GPS gave up and figured a new route.
When driving around the newly developed areas of Rancho Cucamonga I turn on the French woman’s voice on my nav widget just to listen to her telling me that I need to be back on the road. Great fun for all.
Stranger
Next time you have a street not found, try skipping the number box and enter the street name directly. Sometimes this will allow you to find streets that otherwise you couldn’t.
Also these systems can be picky about how street names are listed.
An address on the North end of 5th street might be encoded as
N 5th street
North 5th street
5th street North
N Fifth street
North Fifth street
Fifth street North
I’m wondering when I should install a new database. Last time I went in for service I chose the ‘Find a Toyota dealer’ option. It directed me right to the place where they were. Some things have moved or changed in the past four or five years. On one hand, street addresses themselves haven’t changed (except for new streets). On the other hand, a new database is expensive (ISTR they’re over $200) and I don’t use the navigation often.
For around $200 or a bit more you can buy last year’s model Garmin nuvi handheld navigator with updated maps and a host of other capabilities (Bluetooth speaker phone, route planning and photo software with USB or BT link to your computer, subscription traffic alert system) and take it with you in whatever vehicle you want. The cost for updating in-dash nav systems is prohibitive and stupid; updating the database should be part of the standard service the car company offers as normal support.
Stranger
I agree.
(My nav system does have Bluetooth. 
)
Johnny’s car is 4 years old. I was just wondering at what point would you say he owns the car and is responsible for its upkeep?
It probably takes them more time (labour) to wash the car after an oil change than it does to install a new GPS database, and yet they always wash the car after servicing. I think an annual update should be part of the ‘standard service’, just like a new oil filter is included in an oil change. Sure, they charge for the filter; but $200+ is a bit steep for updating a database.
Oh, once he’s out of warranty of course he’s outside of normal service. But as a courtesy I would think that car manufacturers would offer nav system updates. This is essentially free for them (assuming they have to maintain mapping data for new production vehicles anyway) and would engender customer loyalty, especially since it is just as cheap or cheaper now to purchase a brand new fully functional handheld nav system with car mount and other features, and most GPS manufacturers offer updates for <US$100 (or you can find freeware updates of varying quality for free online).
I understand that the car manufacturer gets their upgrades from Navteq or another provider and they have to pay for that, but one would think they could negotiate a flat rate based upon production numbers or some such. I think most manufacturers are treating this like a cash cow. On my car the nav system update is US$500, and is at least a year out of date when they issue it. There’s no chance in hell I’m going to pay to upgrade it, and next time it comes to buy a car, while I’ll probably buy the same marquee based upon the mechanical reliability and salient features of it as a vehicle, I’m not going factor the nav system into my “will pay for” price.
Stranger
Since your GPS asks for the street number before the street name, the most likely explanation is that it thinks that particular street number doesn’t exist on that street, and so doesn’t give you the option of entering that street name once you’ve given the number.
In my opinion, this is not a good user interface design. There are bound to be differences between the real world and the database in the GPS. Because of this, the UI shouldn’t assume that the database is correct when the user input doesn’t match the database. It should, instead, let the user know there is a mismatch and present alternatives. For example, in your case it could let you enter the street name, then tell you that it can’t find that address and present you with the closest match that is in the database.
If you ever run into this problem again, try entering an address that’s close to the one you’re looking for. If that address is in the GPS it will get you close to where you want to go.
While I don’t doubt your comment about engendering customer loyalty I would take issue with your other comments. The car comapny (mine at least) probably does not treat this as a cash cow, since the re-orders go direct to Navtek and they don’t come through the car maker’s parts ordering channel.
As far as the rest of your comments go, substitute record companies for Navtek, and music CD for map disk. Or Microsoft and Windows.
The argument is the same, why should I pay for it, it is already paid for. The answer is the same, The copyright holder owns it, and you have to pay for a copy (Or somebody does, I sure Navtek doesn’t care who as long as someone does.)
In the case of my car company if a new disk comes out during the first year, you get that update disk by mail free. After that you own the system and you get to pay for updates.
Same as if you bought a Thomas guide (map book) and Thomas printed a new one the following year. If you want the later improved version, you have to pay for it.
ETA: $500 for a nav update? :eek: Man is Scooby-Do screwing you. I don’t ever want to hear that Volvo is expensive. ours are $200
Given that I pull up the nav widget on my cell phone and find all the nav info I need using Google Earth for free, it seems like car companies and nav providers are trying to sell lamp oil in the era of electricity. That’s fine if that is the business model they want to follow, but an in-dash nav system isn’t going to be a draw to me if I have to pay more to maintain it versus GPS as part of my normal phone service.
Stranger
The first time I tried to use my Magellan navigator to get to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park, it tried to get me to a point about seven miles past the entrance. It might have been a numbering error because the post office for the park is Superior, AZ and while the true entrance is about three and a half miles west of the center of the town, the Nav thought it was three and a half miles east. I tried punching in the address into various on-line mapping sites. Mapquest was about a thousand feet off, GoogleEarth was about a half mile off, and Google Maps was at that spot on the other side of town.
I also discovered that the streets’ announcements are synthesized from the text. When the Nav proudly announced, “You have arrived at Bce Thmpsn Arbrtm St Pk” I had a hard time understanding it. It doesn’t do so well with Spanish placenames, either.
Actually, systems can be built to work either way.
But the confusion you mention about what city the destination is in is real. Some systems can deal with this better than others (by, for example, allowiing a street to be in more than one city at the same time [for example, “Hollywood” and “Los Angeles”]).
Ed
Google and the cell phone companies (or their contracted partners) pay for the updated maps themselves from the same places that Garmin etc. get them; they don’t get them for free either.
So those maps are paid for from ads or subscription fees. In the end, I don’t know what the better business model is.
But there’s a misconception that Garmin’s maps cost money while Google’s are free. They are both expensive, Google just hides the cost better.
Ed
Garmin pays millions for it’s updated mapping info and a GPS is only as good as it’s maps. I don think it’s a sustainable business model to try and be price competitive and offer free lifetime database upgrades at the same time.
Google and a stand alone GPS are utterly different business models. If free wireless Internet is omnipresent someday the onboard maps will be redundant but that day is not today.