For What It's Worth

Rand McNally "Good Sam" RVND 7725-LM GPS - First Impressions

2013-05-18T09:00:00.001-05:00

I just received my new Good Sam RVND 7725-LM GPS powered by Rand McNally. I am going to share some initial thoughts and first impressions with you today. After a road test in a couple of weeks, I will post some more impressions after that longer use.

The 7725 is a new model, sold through Camping World only, as far as I can tell. It is branded as Good Sam on the bottom left of the GPS, but otherwise seems nearly identical to the Rand McNally branded 7720. Whether there is any advantage to buying the 7725 over the 7720 remains to be seen. The fact is, in the online forums at least, no one seems to know. The 7725 curiously, is no where on Rand McNally's website, even in the support section. That is a little disconcerting.

I have a long history with personal navigation devices. A long one. I also travel a lot, both for business and pleasure. I estimate approximately 25,000 miles per year on the road in some form - almost of all of which is with some sort of navigation device (or smartphone software) running. I have a GPS on all the time, especially in later years as solutions like Google Maps, TomTom and Waze use my driving to feed its predictive traffic database. Over the years, I have owned and used the following products: Garmin SP III, SP 2710, SP 2730, Garmin i5, Garmin c330, Garmin 760, Garmin 885T, Dash Navigation, TeleNav for Sprint, TomTom 740 Live, CoPilot Live v8, Navigon for Android, Navigon for iPad, Google Navigation, Waze, Garmin Nuvi 3490LMT, Garmin 3590LMT, Scout by Telenav, TomTom for Android, Rand McNally 7725LM. I've used each of those over the years, at least for one trip at a minimum. eBay is a wonderful thing!

I guess you could say that I am still searching for my perfect solution - no one has nailed it yet. The RVND 7725 will NOT be that perfect solution, but I knew that before I ever bought it. I purchased it with my expectations in check.

This blog post is not going to walk through each screen or explain the use of each feature in detail. Rand McNally has a very good user guide (use the one for the 7720) that does a great job of explaining everything this unit does. I'll focus on what is not written and share my initial impressions.

Branding of the 7725 on the box

The 7725 is packaged in a solid box with a premium feel to it - no rattles or other signs of unsecured parts flying around in there. Immediately upon opening the box a "quick start" guide is available. Nice approach. There is a thick layer of Styrofoam before you reach the GPS itself, which is then packed inside of a thin Styrofoam bag within a form-fitting egg crate type shell. Well packaged and presented. Underneath the GPS itself is another egg crate with preformed areas that house the windshield mount, AC power cord, DC power cord and USB cable.

This is a big device. I knew that. I knew I was buying a 7" GPS but when I opened it I still laughed a little about how big it is. This is also a rugged looking device. This is not going to win any beauty awards in the design department. It isn't an elegant 7" tablet. This device is bulky, thick and somewhat gaudy, down to the bright orange power button, a color which seems totally unnecessary given how obvious the button is to begin with. The average consumer knows how to operate those little smartphone and tablet power buttons. Certainly they can operate this massive power button without it being bright orange.

The actual GPS material is nice. It is that cross between rubber and plastic that will immediately be familiar to anyone with lots of experience in smartphone cases. It is hard to explain to those unfamiliar with it, but I like the texture.

Size comparison to standard office pen

Yes, this is one thick GPS

I also ordered the Rand McNally 7" GPS case. It gets the job done and looks decent. No issues with the case at all. Below is the 7725 mounted inside the case. There appears to be room for the DC adapter. Putting the AC adapter in this case is not going to happen.

Rand McNally 7" GPS accessory case (sold separately)

I find the screen to have a good level of brightness when mounted in my car. Our RV is a Class C so with the cab over, I can't imagine having any concerns with the screen at all. I have not owned a previous Rand McNally GPS so I can't compare this to others. I have read complaints though, from owners of previous models. All I can say is that I don't have any concerns. The picture below does not do the screen brightness justice. The screen is brighter than in the photo below.

Screen brightness in a car

I experienced no technical issues with the startup or setup of the 7725. Rand McNally doesn't do a good job of explaining whether to connect the GPS to the computer before installing the PC Dock software or after. However, when installing the PC Dock software, if the GPS isn't connected to the computer, eventually the installation will tell you that a GPS must be connected to continue. There was a small update available that took 10 seconds to apply to my newly shipped GPS. However, the area within the Dock software that is for update release notes simply said "this is the area where update release notes will be displayed." Not helpful for the update that was just provided.

When I registered the device and connected it to the Dock software, the Dock software knows the content and version numbers of what is on my GPS. It would be nice if Rand McNally associated that information with my registration email address to proactively notify me every time there is something new in the Dock software to update. However, I have seen no evidence that this is the case, so I will plan on blindly connecting the 7725 to the Dock software periodically and certainly before every trip.

OK - let's talk about shortcomings. All of these items are things that I knew about before buying so I can't complain. However, based on my previous GPS experience I miss them and the 7725 not having them caused me to think long and hard about buying it.

No voice recognition. It seems like a premium GPS sold in 2013 ought to have this. I knew it didn't. I bought it anyway. But I find it annoying that it doesn't come with it, especially for use in a RV.
Lack of traffic included. I knew this too, but I find it petty that the 7725 doesn't come with the lifetime traffic receiver. The Magellan RoadMate RV9165T-LM includes lifetime traffic at this same price point. Rand McNally should have included traffic at this price point.
Lack of Bluetooth The weather feature is nice and it seems well implemented. What I find incredibly shortsighted is that this feature only works over WIFI. The fact that it does work over WIFI is great, don't get me wrong. The issue is that it doesn't work over Bluetooth. It seems clear that many PND's such as Garmin Smartphone Link and Magellan SmartGPS, and many telematics solutions like Toyota Entune and others have gone the route of sharing a smartphone's data connection over Bluetooth This costs the customer nothing and it supplies a robust pipeline of data to the GPS. Rand McNally not including this functionality was almost a deal breaker for me.

Immediate Dislikes

First of all, I hate the mount. I mean I despise it. The mount itself is sturdy, built decent (as far as plastic builds can go) and is fully adjustable for any conceivable mounting situation. However, when it comes to usability, it earns an 'F' and almost earned a chuck out the window on my first day of ownership. Now, to be fair, if you want to mount this GPS and never move it again, then this mount is just fine. In fact, it probably works well for that. However, I do not ever leave my GPS device visible on the windshield when parked (even when going into a restaurant or truck stop). Once I get the mount set in the perfect position and angle I want to leave the mount alone. I will remove and replace the GPS from the mount when I park and leave the vehicle unattended. This mount is a disaster if that is your mode of operation.

The 7725 mount. Well made and sturdy.

Here is the problem with the mount. The mount itself uses a large flat plastic "plate" which slides into a mating "slot" on the GPS. You have to line up the plate with the slot perfectly, in two planes, then slide the GPS down onto the plate and lock it in place. It is a nice secure fit. However, this is not a task that is easy to do blind. If the windshield mount stays on the windshield such that you can't see whether you've got the plate lined up with the slot (in two planes) then good luck trying to remount the GPS onto the windshield mount. In addition, this is not a powered mount. The USB power cable plugs directly into the GPS itself, directly out of the back of the unit. Again, it is not easy to plug in the power cable blind.

Mate the GPS slot to the mount's plate. Don't try this without a direct view.

Removing the GPS from the mount requires some force. You must break the GPS free from the mount by sliding it in the reverse direction such that the GPS slot disengages from the mount's plate. It takes some force to overcome this tight fit and requires two hands. It takes a force such that a few times I've broken the windshield mount's suction from the windshield.

I've owned this device for one day and that is all it took to know that this mount isn't going to meet my needs. There is no way that I am going to fight with trying to attach the GPS to the mount blind every time I go into a store or truck stop. Nor am I going to remove the suction cup mount in its entirety from the windshield every time.

So, I added to my purchase cost and purchased a RAM Mounts X-Grip mount for tablets. I already have this mount for my smartphone and it is stunningly awesome. I look forward to using it with the 7725, despite the fact that it increased my purchase price by $45.

RAM Mount X-Grip Tablet mount

Some First Impressions

Having to acknowledge the Warning and Legal Consent screen every single time I turn the device on is lame. The lawyers from Garmin, Google and TomTom don't seem to think that this is necessary. Someone needs to go slap the Rand McNally attorneys upside the head and remove this annoyance in a future update.

I love the fact that this device has predictive traffic, powered by Navteq. It remains to be seen how robust this traffic content is compared to TomTom IQRoutes. Navteq is definitely in catch-up mode on this. However, predictive traffic is a crucial feature for a modern GPS and I am glad to see it in this device. I was surprised to see that the predictive traffic slow downs appeared on the map by coloring coding the roads. This is a nice touch. I will combine my use of the 7725 with a more robust traffic solution (either Google Navigation or TomTom for Android) while on the road. The 7725 will use its predictive traffic for general route planning purposes while Google Nav or TomTom will assist with the real world live traffic should something develop en route. I think it is a good combination.

It is extremely annoying that my selection of turning predictive traffic on doesn't stick through a power cycle. Every single time I turn on the device I have to turn predictive traffic back on. Annoying and unnecessary. Please fix this Rand McNally.

I like the layout of the screen. The screen is huge and there are a lot of pieces of information presented around the screen, but there is still a massive amount of screen left for the map. I don't share the complaints others have voiced online about the busyness of the screen or the map being too small. I've also found that the autozoom function works well so far in my limited use of the device today.

The male voice is significantly better than the female voice in my opinion. The female voice is too robotic but the male voice improves on that significantly. I find the speaker to be a very good quality sound with a volume range that is more than adequate.

We know that this device has Navteq for the maps. As far as quality, it doesn't get better than Navteq for built-in maps. What we don't know is what vintage these maps are. Additionally, Rand McNally's archaic policy of only releasing one map update per year will do nothing but help ensure that maps remain 18 months to 2 years old on this device at best. Quarterly map updates should be provided on this device like most competitors but I knew that wasn't the case when I bought it and I still bought it.

I was really surprised to see the way Rand McNally implemented WIFI. If I have WIFI on and connected to a WAP, when I turn the GPS off (or let it turn off when turning the ignition off), they do not enable WIFI and reconnect to the WAP when power is restored. What? EVERY time you turn the device on you have to enable WIFI again in the settings and reconnect to the WAP. That is unbelievably annoying. WIFI should stay on once I turn it on and it should reconnect to the WAP when the GPS is turned back on. Has anyone at Rand McNally ever used a WIFI tablet before?

Concerning the WIFI, it is used for the weather content. I really wish Rand McNally would have used the WIFI for more robust traffic content as well. The separate, external Rand McNally traffic receiver gets slammed in online reviews. Plus, it is old school RDS traffic anyway. I find it frustrating that this device isn't being supplied traffic content using HD Radio or better yet online through WIFI. Navteq has traffic available in both of these more robust formats. Rand McNally has chosen to use neither. This seems like a very short-sighted design decision. Let's hope that a future update brings us more robust traffic through the WIFI connection.

I like the fact that the device announces whether your destination is on the right or the left. Navteq data makes this possible. Nice touch.

I like the easily accessible slide-out menu that shows you an overview of your route. There is an option button at the bottom of this screen that shows you your route in different ways including an overview map. I wish Rand McNally would allow us to set one of these views as a default for the slide-out menu. I always check an overview map on any GPS to ensure the route that the device picked passes the smell test. I wish that this overview map could be set as my personal default for the route detail slide-out menu.

I like the fact that this GPS has packed in a lot of little niceties such as warnings for state line crossings, speed limit changes, time zone changes, curves and more. My family loves to take pictures of state welcome signs as we travel, so this will be a nice feature to have. I've read some online reviews about these features having inconsistent performance (alerting on some curves but not on worse curves) so it remains to be seen after more extended use how well this is implemented.

The RV database seems pretty robust and is likely the reason most people buy this unit. It contains a wealth of information about each location. One disappointment is that it doesn't seem to have local, city camping locations, even those that have hookups.

I like the inclusion of a directional compass on the map. This is something that I think Garmin is insane for never including on their GPS devices.

I've run many test routes from my home. In every case so far the 7725 has selected the "right" route as I see it. This is especially true for one of my big "test routes" which separates the men from the boys for PND routing. That route is the route from Des Moines, IA to St. Louis, MO. I've written an extensive blog post about why this route is a great test route. I am glad to see that the 7725 nailed this route, both in the route selected as well as the ETA. That is good news. In other tests where I personally feel a non-interstate route is best, but an interstate route is also available as a close temptation, the 7725 seems to be more in line with my thinking by picking the non-interstate route. I've always felt like the Rand McNally website does a good job with route selection and ETA so I am glad to see that the 7725 behaves much like the website in this regard.

While I appreciate that the 7725 has route preferences to avoid things like tollways and gravel roads, I wish that it would give you these options on a route-by-route basis. I hope that Rand McNally will change this feature to act more like TomTom. After TomTom calculates a route, it prompts you with "This route contains a tollway (or dirt road). Would you like to use it or avoid it?" When I am familiar with the route, there are times when I want to avoid a tollway and times when I want to take the tollway. I'd like to quickly tell the unit my choice on a route-by-route basis instead of having to change a preference setting. For example, if I am traveling from Indiana to the east coast, I may desire to avoid the Ohio turnpike. Upon route calculation, it would be nice to be asked whether I want to avoid tollways or not and have the unit recalculate taking US-30 instead. Other times, say if I am using the device in my car and driving from the KOA West Chicago into downtown, I'd answer "yes, use the tollway" in that scenario.

Navteq data has car pool lanes available in the dataset. Garmin uses that data. Since the 7725 has a car mode and can be used in a toad or rental car, I wish that it also had car pool lane information. When driving in a major city using or avoiding car pool lanes can produce a major change to the route selected and the ETA, especially when the unit already has predictive traffic. I hope the Rand McNally adds this feature.

Conclusion

I am looking forward to getting this device out on the road in a couple weeks on our first RV trip of the season. I am glad that when I do, I will have the RAM Mount X-Grip to replace the awful mount that comes with the 7725. I will be glad to have route planning that is using Navteq's predictive traffic content as well as (what appears so far at least) to be Rand McNally's pretty good routing and ETA algorithm that is similar to my positive experience with their website directions. I'll be happy to be able to advance plan my trip in the multi-stop route planner. I'll be pleased to execute the trip with a unit where the volume level will easily overcome all of the road noise of a RV.

I will look forward to having a weather overlay on the map while I navigate but be cussing Rand McNally every time that I have to enable WIFI and reconnect to the WAP when the 7725 turns on. This frustration will be equaled only by the frustration that I'll have as I start out on my journey only to realize that the map isn't being shown yet because I haven't stroked the Rand McNally attorney's ego yet by acknowledging the legal garbage every time I turn the device on.

I'll drive down the road wishing that I had Bluetooth and wishing that my wife had a Rand McNally Android or iPhone app so she could be searching the POI database while I drive and pushing a stopover or destination to my 7725 over Bluetooth while I drive. I won't regret not buying the Magellan SmartGPS for this feature but I will wish that my 7725 had it.

And I'll be using my 7725 with my smartphone running either Google Navigation or TomTom for Android to ensure I have more current maps and the most up-to-date live traffic to augment what the 7725 thinks it wants me to do. Current maps and live traffic content will not be a strength of the 7725, I know that and I'll work around that until / if Rand McNally decides to improve that for us.

When I return from my trip in early June, I'm sure that I'll find that the 7725 worked pretty well, with a few drawbacks - much like my feeling about the device when I decided to buy it. We'll see!

These retrans disputes are so confusing. I've asked Sinclair and the NAB for help!

2013-02-19T08:41:00.000-06:00

Another day, another retrans dispute using customers as pawns in the chess game played by corporate conglomerates. Since these retrans disputes are so confusing, I've reached out to Sinclair and NAB and asked them for their assistance. I really hope they help me!

I need some assistance from you in determining which cable provider to use. You see, in August 2012 Sinclair indicated that I should switch from Dish Network because they were treating you bad. Since there is nothing more important in my life than the Fox programming that Sinclair provides, I listened! Thanks for being my guiding light. I switched from Dish Network that day and went to DirecTV, because in August 2012 they were apparently being nice to you. But now I read in February 2013 that DirecTV isn't being nice to you anymore. That stinks because I just switched to them 6 months ago when they were being nice to you and Dish wasn't. But hey, I guess it is cool that Dish is being nice to you again now. I'm glad you guys made up in these last 6 months because things seemed really bad in August 2012 between you two.

But now I am so confused! I am just not sure who to switch to now. Can you please tell me who is being nice to you so that I can switch to them? I also have an option of Mediacom in my area. But I read that in 2006 AND 2009 they weren't being nice to you either. That agreement will probably be up soon and I am afraid that when it is up THEY won't be nice to you either. This is all so confusing. I don't have access to Suddenlink, Time Warner or Comcast, but even if I did I probably shouldn't pick them either because I've read that none of them were nice to you in 2006, 2007 and 2010. Darn it all. All of these providers are so mean to you guys. I just don't understand it. And it is so confusing to me because I just don't know who to select as my provider now. It is clear to me that since you have been involved in at least 8 retrans disputes in 6 years that the providers must be colluding against you. Clearly all of those companies are bad and you guys are good. I just need some help from you to determine which of those companies are "less bad" so that I can watch TV. Thanks Sinclair. You guys are awesome!

Copy2Contact's Ridiculous Apple vs Android Blog Post

2012-12-11T13:44:00.001-06:00

I was pretty surprised today to see a blog post today by Copy2Contact with a 5th grade playground "my Dad is bigger than your Dad' post taking sides in the iOS vs Android debate. I mean, really? What kind of business potentionally alienates, on purpose, half of their customer base with nonsense unrelated to their core product? Choice can't be left to choice?

But as I read their post by an unnamed author I was stunned at the amateur arguments and opinions-disguised-as-facts approach to the blog post. As a personal customer of Copy2Contact back when it was Anagram (and still a customer today), I found myself, for the first time since they acquired me as a customer, thinking "who are these boneheads?" And for importantly, would I give them any more of my money with this kind of amateur nonsense? That is a bit harsh, but seriously, read their piece and decide for yourself. I HOPE that this was a bait piece, in an attempt to simply draw traffic to their site. If they actually employ someone this void of deductive reasoning skills then heaven help them.

My house has the following: 5 iPods (1 original and 4 Touch's across 3 generations), an iPad 1, an iPhone 4S, 1 Android tablet and 3 Android smartphones, plus two laptops and a desktop. I get technology.

So forgive me while I roll my eyes at an author that admits just starting to "dabble" (his word) in Android this year and then goes on to lecture us about the two platforms and superiority of one of them. Reminds me of the 50 First Dates mentality. Live with both options for a couple years and then come back to us with an opinion that is relevant.

Now, let's dissect this blog post piece by piece and decide for yourself if you want to do business with a company this insanely shortsighted about their opinions on technology.

This author believes in being "open-minded when it comes to technology." And then he proceeds to use his experience in "dabbling" in one type of technology as the basis for his self-important declaration about the superiority of the one he prefers. Pure nonsense.

He compares using Android to using Windows (vs Mac) and reinstalling the OS countless times or tinkering with anti-virus software. Well, I get to live with 4 post-iOS5 devices that WILL NOT upgrade the OS via USB on an Intel i5 with 8 GB RAM. They won't. They wipe the devices, then fail, all of them (WIPED), EVERY time, with a USB error that Apple swears is the computer's problem. Nevermind the GPS devices, Android devices, printers, external drives, my Fitbit, 2 digital cameras, and my kids talking donkey toy, all of which don't seem to have a problem with that same computer and that same USB port. But you are probably right. It has to be my computer's problem. Sure. And I am sure it was user error when I had to put my iPad and 2 different gen2 iPod's in airplane mode and back to get the WIFI to work after the device was dormant for awhile.

"For users that want to have the best phone possible, Android’s deals with half a dozen different manufacturers makes that impossible." I simply cannot make sense of that statement. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Here is my sentence: "For users that want to have the best phone possible the user walks into the store and buys the best phone possible." Manufacturers make cheap garbage phones and they make rock stars like the Galaxy S3 or Galaxy Note 2. If you want the best phone possible YOU BUY IT. If I want a Galaxy Note 2, the fact that there is a cheap Chinese android phone for sale in the next aisle MEANS NOTHING TO ME. This is just a bonehead comment.

Then he follows it up with this whopper: "there is a good chance a better version of your Android phone will be released by a different manufacturer within weeks or months of your purchase." Um, no, not really. There was 1 year between the original HTC EVO and the Samsung Galaxy. It took 2.5 years to get from the original Galaxy to the Galaxy S3. Several high end Motorola devices came out in that year (YEAR, not week). The Galaxy S3 has been out for 10 months now and there is no apparent successor yet. The Galaxy Note 2 came out 10 months after the S3 and 1.1 years after the Note 1. This comment is factually inaccurate and ignorant. What was the lifespan between the iPad 3 and the iPad 4 by the way?

"Want to upgrade your iOS 5 to iOS 6? No problem." Oh really? Want to explain to us how to upgrade my iPad 1 to iOS6? Please. Hear that? It is called fragmentation in iOS. Now, without question fragmentation in Android is more robust but spare us the idea that it is non-existent in Apple land. Oh and thanks for the iPad fragmentation too, otherwise known as the "press this icon to blow up your app 2x because we don't have another strategy until the developer writes a different app specifically for this device." Fragmentation. Look it up.

I love this one. In his discussion comparing app stores, he says "But when you go into the Apple store, you never get malware." Really? http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/first-ios-malware-found/ What is that you say? Yes, it is malware in the app store. Yes, real, factual, credible information FROM JULY. More flat out factual inaccuracies from this writer.

"I’m big on securing business data and the lack of checks in the Android environment simply puts your data at too much risk." What an amateur. First of all, connecting an Android smartphone to a corporate Exchange server gives the Administrator complete control over the device. Has this author even READ the permissions that are granted when an exchange server connection is initiated on the device for the first time? Obviously not. But let's not stop there. Here is a cute article *FROM 2010* about the Device Policy feature set added to Android in version 2.2 (yeah, 2.2). (http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/administer-control-android-phones-with-google-apps-device-policy-app/). Let's also not forget about one of many third party security solutions that can be added on top of these other two things AT THE USER AND COMPANY's DISCRETION. Do you understand the word discretion? It means the USER AND COMPANY get to decide - not Apple.

Next, on to the rant about the "junk" in the app store when entering a search by app function instead of app name. For kicks I entered the search "take notes by hand." I searched the Google Play store. I got 1000 results and the first ten were: Handrite Note Free, Antipaper Notes, ListNote, TT Note, Free Note, Jotter, Note Stacks, My Script, Jot It and Notebooks. But it really does piss me off that I had to jump over all of that garbage to find the few apps that were really relevant to what I wanted to search for. Damn you Google. And I am just SURE that the first 3 of 4 of those are actually Chinese hackers that will steal my thumb print from the phone the next time I touch the screen.

In the Apple store I got "No results for "take notes by hand."" But I am sure that I just didn't "search right." At least Apple was there to protect me against downloading a non-approved app for taking notes by hand. I feel protected now.

"Every phone is also preloaded with a ton of bloatware from whatever manufacturer you chose." Um. No. Try this press release from *A YEAR AND A HALF AGO* when Sprint announced removal of preloaded apps on current phones and no more preloaded apps on future Android phones. http://community.sprint.com/baw/community/sprintblogs/announcements/blog/2011/07/08/did-you-know-sprint-allows-removal-of-most-preloaded-apps-on-htc-evo-3d But, I am sure that in a year and half you just didn't have time to read that press release. You likely were still pondering the deep thought that went into this blog post. This is a CARRIER decision, not Google's decision. Really? Are you that uninformed?

And I LOVE this one: "Searching for ways to get my Android phone to work the way I wanted, I headed straight to Google, where the only suggestions were that I “root” the phone. Is it too much to ask that the phone be ready out of the box?" Notice no examples were provided? Hey uninformed blog author: give us three example of ways you can make your iPhone "work the way you want" without jailbreaking that you cannot do on an Android phone without rooting? Just three. Go.

Then we get to the "iOS is far more intuitive" comment. You know, an opinion that is stated as a fact without providing any examples? Here is an example of that intuitiveness. Just suppose I want to do something nuts like send an email to someone and attach any file on my phone, whether in internal memory, or the SD card and send it to someone. I know - that is far out. How is that working out for you on your iOS device? Just browse to the SD ca.....oh, yeah, nevermind. Well, browse on your internal memory for the file that you transferred to your iPhone by hard connecting it via USB and performing a full phone synchronization (you know, like you did on that Palm Pilot device in 1994). Oh, I know, you didn't want to transfer the 1GB movie from iTunes right now in order to transfer that 50KB work related file, but iTunes knows best, right?. So go ahead and open your email program and attach that document. What? You mean that document type isn't one of the Apple sanctioned document types that you can attach to an email? OK. Well Apple must know best. That can't be an important file type to begin with then. Go ahead and change what you needed to do because it was clearly wrong. See how intuitive that was?

And then he closes with the predicable "battery life and speed" comparison. Except that the two blogs referenced were written in September. Better recheck the phones that are referenced as the "fastest" and the "most battery life" since it is almost three months later.

This Apple vs Android war perpetuated by these ridiculous bloggers is nonsense. To each his own and that is why we have personal choices. Imagine the ego that it takes to declare one's personal technology choice as superior to anothers. Add to that the factual inaccuracies noted above and you've got a bad case of a guy that seems to be trying really hard to find an audience for attention.

Garmin Smartphone Link v1.3 - More problems

2012-07-17T21:49:00.002-05:00

If you spend a few minutes reading my past blog posts, you'll see a history of documented problems with Garmin Smartphone Link. Unfortunately, tonight, with the v1.3 update, it is more of the same from Garmin.

The phrase that ought to strike fear in every Garmin executive (and shareholder) is "good enough." In other words "Google Navigation is good enough." Or "Waze is good enough." You could even preface the comment with "It's no Garmin, but..."

Those apps move closer to be "good enough" for mainstream consumers in the following ways:

Garmin continues to try to sell a dedicated navigation device for the same price as a Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone or for MORE than a Google Nexus 7.
The features of Google Navigation (or Waze or others) continues to improve while Garmin continues to artificially restrict software features on existing models to protect future hardware sales.
Garmin becomes a pain in the ass to deal with.

Tonight, I have arrived at #3.

I've moved on from the Smartphone Link problems that I've described in detail in my blog. I've moved on from the ridiculous amount of effort it took for me to spoon feed the details of their problems to someone at Garmin that actually knew what Smartphone Link was. I was willing to forgive and forget. Then they do it again. They release v1.3 tonight and what do you know - more problems.

Smartphone Link v1.2 worked fine for me today on 3 different occasions. I updated to v1.3 tonight while enjoying the pot roast sandwich at Culver's (you should try it - it is good!) I jumped back into my car and the little Smartphone Link icon turned blue, the Smartphone Link icon on my Nuvi appeared and I was off - driving home.

Except....the temperature on my Nuvi was listed as "--" instead of the ridiculously hot 99 degrees that it is here. I went to the weather app on my Nuvi and I was greeted by an advertisement telling me all the great features of Advanced Weather. I know. I already bought it (twice actually).

I go to the Smartphone Link services icon on my phone and low and behold, all 4 services that I own and already used today are now shown with a price tag. My "subscribed services" are blank. As is typical with an in-app purchase, sometimes you have to let the app and the server communicate so that the server can tell the app "hey, app - this guy already purchased this feature - light it up for him chief." Except, I couldn't find a way to do that in the app.

I picked the cheapest service: "Advanced Weather" for $4.99 and selected purchase. I figured that I'd get into the process deep enough that at some point the server would inform the app that I purchased it already. Then I see the email notification from Google. I got a fresh, new, shiny $4.99 in-app charge.

I decided that I'd uninstall the Smartphone Link app and reinstall it. Maybe it was just a glitch. Upon reinstalling it, now I find even the $4.99 that I just purchased 2 minutes ago is no longer listed as subscribed. It too now shows up in services that I can purchase.

Since this is an in-app charge, there is no 15 minute return policy. I have to deal with Garmin. Well, I've been down that road before. Garmin, to this day, has never responded to double billing me. NOW, they have triple billed me.

So I call Garmin support on the phone. Guess what. They are only open from 8am - 6pm Monday through Friday. I'll be damned if I am going to take time off from work to sit in my car to trouble shoot their sloppy software development.

So for me, tonight, Garmin has officially fallen into #3 above - being a total pain in the ass to deal with.

I bit the bullet on #1 above - buying a $399 Nuvi after not owning one since the 885T. I've lived with my 3590 rebooting multiple times per week (yes, even after the latest firmware). Now I officially regret my purchase. Tonight it just crossed the threshold into "not worth it" territory. Google Navigation became "good enough" for me. Tonight I can see myself looking back on this day referring to the last Garmin I ever purchased.

Garmin should be better than this. Their products are priced at a premium. They are the world leader in consumer navigation. These sloppy problems should come from the #3 or #4 company in the industry, or the free app guys - not the supposed top player. Garmin should quit using their customers as beta testers. And they ought to try providing a 2012 level of customer service. Social media can be used for more than promoting your racing team you know!

Mapquest for Android - How does it stack up?

2012-07-14T12:53:00.000-05:00

In my never ending quest to find the right navigation solution for my needs, I've been spending some time with the Mapquest app for Android.

The map has a lot to offer as well as some things that it needs to improve on. Here is a quick look:

Full voice guidance including text-to-speech, auto-reroute, auto map rotation.
The use of your own TTS engine rather than a lower quality bundled TTS engine like you'll find in Waze for example. For those of us that have purchased a higher quality TTS engine like SVOX, we can use our SVOX voices within Mapquest. This also allows you to benefit from the pronunciation correction features of SVOX. If a street name is pronounced wrong, just change it's pronunciation in SVOX! Thanks Mapquest!
Voice search is provided, using the Google voice input feature.
Multi-step routing. This is a great feature that is missing from Google Navigation. You can enter multiple stops in your route. Mapquest needs to take this to the next level and allow us to save, edit and recall planned trips.
A robust traffic feed is in the app and comes from Inrix, a respected name in traffic content. In my mid-market region of 500,000 people the Inrix feed is by far the most robust content of any traffic source on any device. The traffic feed includes incident & flow data updated every 5 minutes.
The map is interactive meaning that you can long-press anywhere on the map and route to that point or save it as a favorite. But unfortunately, it doesn't appear that the map has any auto zoom capability based on the distance to the next turn.
Mapquest has included a great use of Android shortcuts. This allows you to add a one-touch icon to your home screen (or within a folder on your home screen) that is "pre-configured" to a specific destination address. When you press this icon, Mapquest opens and begins navigating to that destination without further user intervention.
Android calendar and contact integration. When you press an address in your calendar, contacts, a 3rd party app or a website, if you have your navigation default preferences cleared in Android then Mapquest is one of the options to receive the address. This passes the address directly to Mapquest from the source app without requiring the user to enter it or copy and paste it.
Mapquest's ETA seems very good. My biggest complaint about Google Maps is their very conservative ETA's. Mapquest seems to be right on with their ETA calculations.

The Mapquest app has improved greatly from its initial launch but it still has a ways to go. Here are some things that need work in this app.

Voice search requires an extra step that shouldn't be necessary. When you speak a search the Mapquest app uses voice recognition only to populate the search box with text. It doesn't actually execute the search. Therefore, the user has to touch the search button. This is an unnecessary step while driving. Contrast that to Google Navigation. When you speak a search, Google receives your voice, translates it to text and automatically executes the search. If it isn't sure or there are multiple options, you are presented with a "Did you mean:" box of options. Mapquest needs to remove this unnecessary step from its voice input workflow.
The text size used for street names in the Mapquest app is simply unusable and I have a 4.7" smartphone screen. Both Google and Waze do a much better job with the readability of the street name text. This remains the biggest downfall with the Mapquest map in my opinion. When I navigate in an unfamiliar area, even though there is turn by turn guidance, I like to compare the street signs with the streets I see on the map to get a better feel for how many more blocks I have before my turn. This is impossible with the Mapquest app because of their problem display the text of street names.
Despite having a robust traffic feed from Inrix in the app, and despite Mapquest telling us that they use that data in determining routes and ETA's, to date, I have not found any evidence that Mapquest ever shows the user any indication of the impact of the traffic. In other words, if there is traffic and it is impacting my ETA, Mapquest should tell me that. Google does this by a simple black, red, yellow or green light. ALK, in their CoPilot product, also using Inrix traffic, has perhaps the best implementation of this with their traffic bar on the side of the screen. Not only does it tell you the traffic situation but does so graphically in a way that represents the distance the traffic is away from you. If Mapquest is going to use this traffic content, I want to see how it is using it and impacting my route when I use the app.
The Mapquest app has no ability to show you multiple route options. Everyone: Google Navigation, Waze, Telenav, Navigon and ALK has this now and it needs to be in the Mapquest app.
While the Mapquest app is integrated with contacts and calendar, it is not integrated with apps like Vlingo. Mapquest can do this by themselves without Vlingo's cooperation. On my Android home screen, when I long-press the search button it starts the Vlingo recognition app. I can then speak "Navigate to 123 Main St, Anytown, USA." Since I've cleared my navigation defaults, I am prompted by Android to pick an app to carry out my navigation request. In that list is Google Navigation, Telenav and Garmin Smartphone Link (used with my Nuvi over bluetooth). Mapquest needs to register this app within Android in a way that puts it on that list. For the record Waze hasn't figured this out yet either.
Mapquest, like Telenav does, needs to leverage their online website and link it to their navigation app. We should be able to define favorites, search and select destinations and create routes on the Mapquest website, all of which we should be able to send to the Mapquest app. Mapquest is behind Google and Telenav in this regard.

Here are some questions that I'd love for Mapquest to answer:

Is Inrix used for real time traffic only or do your ETA's take historical traffic into account?
Does the use of the app send data back to Inrix for purposes of real time flow determination?
How does the deal with TomTom for map data impact the ETA? Are you getting only raw map data from TomTom or does the data include IQRoutes data which then impacts the Mapquest ETA?

I like the Mapquest app. It has potential to be a good app, especially given its quality ETA calculations and great Inrix traffic feed but it has some things it needs to improve on.

My take on the Apple Maps announcement

2012-06-14T00:02:00.001-05:00

There has been a ton of speculation about the Apple Maps announcement this week. The announcement was perhaps the worst kept secret of the event. Everyone knew it was coming. Google and Apple have a huge need for you to use their phones for your location based activities so that eventually when the mobile advertising market grows up, they can capitalize. What better way to capture your location based activities than to create a robust app that navigates you whether driving, walking, biking, or using public transportation. Neither Google or Apple could care less about the navigation itself. They care about knowing about your navigation. And therefore, both have now planted both of their feet firmly in the navigation app space. The only way to do it, they believe and I agree, is to provide a robust navigation app that will be your go-to solution for all forms of personal navigation so they have a constant opportunity to serve you mobile ads.

What does this Apple announcement mean? No one knows for sure but here are my thoughts.

TomTom
No one knows the details of the relationship between Apple and TomTom for sure, other than the very short press release that TomTom released. The only fact that we know is that Apple is using TomTom's maps (TeleAtlas actually - owned by TomTom). What we do not know is:

1) Did Apple only buy the underlying mapping data from TomTom (TeleAtlas) and Apple built their own UI on top of that underlying mapping data?
2) Is the routing algorithm TomTom's or Apple's? If TomTom's, does it use IQRoutes data?
3) Will Apple's crowd sourcing feed back into TomTom to support TomTom's IQRoutes feature?
4) Will Apple's crowd sourcing traffic feature feed back into TomTom's traffic service?

If Apple only bought "dummy" map data from TomTom then in my opinion TomTom sold it's soul to the devil because of it's reportedly precarious financial position. Apple has a lot to prove in terms of their ability to develop their own routing algorithm and ETA calculations if they are not using TomTom's. Only after consumer use of the new app will we know for sure how good they are at this new game.

I've said many times that TomTom's main remaining value in the US is it's intellectual property: IQRoutes and HD Traffic. Those two services need users, and lots of them, or these features wither and die. Without users, TomTom cannot sustain the accuracy and timeliness of these features. And without those features, TomTom has little to offer the US consumer that is unique. TomTom already missed the boat badly in the US by not expanding their user base by adding Android users.

We know that Apple has announced that the Apple Maps app will feature crowdsourced traffic. What we do not know if is if it will also contain historical traffic. If it does, this would presumably have to be TomTom IQRoutes because Apple has no history in this space by which to have any historical traffic data. If it does not use historical data at product launch, then Apple has a long way to go to catch up to their competitors. Not having historical traffic data would be a bad sign for those hoping that the Apple Maps app will be back feeding TomTom's IQRoutes and HD Traffic.

If Apple's app is not back feeding TomTom's IQRoutes and HD Traffic then that is a clear sign of the trouble that TomTom is in in my opinion. Apple clearly has the user base to build up their own data that would resemble IQRoutes and HD Traffic. It would take them several years, less in larger cities, but they clearly have the user base to build it like no one other than Google can. It would appear that Apple does not necessarily need TomTom, except for a short term jump start. Clearly the release of Apple Maps will cause a significant reduction in sales of TomTom's own iPhone app. There would be little to justify the expense. If Apple is not using IQRoutes or HD Traffic, then those features would remain as selling points for TomTom's own app, but that advantage will be short lived as Apple builds up their own data. And Apple's own app will likely simply be more fun to use anyway, further drawing users away from TomTom's own paid app. The Apple app will be integrated with Siri and you can bet that Apple will nail the UI.

If Apple Maps is not feeding back into TomTom IQRoutes and HD Traffic then those features, in my view, are dead in the US. Apple Maps will drastically draw users away from TomTom's own apps, their PND's are already in deep decline. There simply do not appear to be enough users out there using IQRoutes and HD Traffic "feeder devices" to make those features viable.

After all of that explanation and speculation my prediction is that Apple buys TomTom.

Garmin
Garmin's public comment downplaying the impact of Google Maps screams of a historical 800 pound gorilla still trying hard to be seen as the major player it once was in the industry. Garmin is positioning itself as the "premium" player in a market of less-featured free or freemium solutions. The problem with that strategy, as I pointed out in previous blog posts, is that their so called premium devices are typically full of "half baked" features that never seal the deal. They get their devices 85% right in my view, but never finish the 15% of the features that would truly put it over the top, justify its high cost, and make it too good to pass up. Instead, they are onto developing another 10 skus of product, end-of-life'ing devices after 12 -16 months and trying to convince me to pay another several hundred dollars for the next "latest and greatest" device. Fool me once Garmin....Actually you fooled me twice, I just bought a 3590 after owning nothing since the 885. Not sure there is another Garmin device in my future that I can see.

Garmin is the only major player left that is at the mercy of a twice removed company for its core foundation - the maps. Garmin is at the mercy of Navteq, who is in the hands of Nokia, for its maps, a problem that no other player has. Part of Garmin's premium justification is Navteq maps - once the clear premier mapping provider. In the hands of Nokia, I am not sure Navteq remains in that position long term.

The future of Garmin's app on the iPhone seems destined to niche status, perhaps only for those customers sophisticated enough to know that they want Navteq maps and are willing to pay the fee, or for customers that still are blindly brand loyal to Garmin.

Garmin has no play in the Android space. Google will continue to exert pressure on Garmin and Garmin simply has no answer. Smartphone Link (Garmin's Android app that mates to a Nuvi via bluetooth) appears to be a lightly used niche app as evidence by the download numbers. For the record, I use the app and love it.

Garmin's problem with Smartphone Link however is that it holds my phone hostage because of its use of my bluetooth connection. That means I can't use a bluetooth headset, I can't use the bluetooth phone feature of my car and I can't use the bluetooth telematics feature in my car with its in-dash apps. Am I willing to give that up long term just to maintain my Garmin Nuvi? No. Smartphone Link is Garmin's Android v2.0 strategy and I think this will also be short lived, like the phones they tried a couple years ago.

Garmin seems only to be able to compete by convincing customers that premium PND's are the way to go. I don't see a competent and sustainable go-forward strategy yet from them to compete in a smartphone dominated world.

My prediction: Garmin buys Navteq from Nokia and tries to position themselves as the premium map set and the premium navigation solution. They may get smart about developing an Android app and continue their iPhone app development and also position their apps as the premium answer to the free alternatives. Whether they have enough features to truly differentiate and justify their premium cost remains to be seen.

Google
Frankly, I don't see Google impacted much by Apple Maps. I don't see that iPhone users make up a significant portion of Google's crowdsourcing user base. I don't see that Google's data will miss these users much. I also don't think Apple Maps will convert any significant quantity of Android customers. I just don't see that Apple Maps provides any advantage over Google Maps. I think that iPhone customers will remain iPhone customers and Android customers will remain Android customers. There is no doubt though that there will be a huge competition between Google and Apple to see who has the best navigation app to attact new users. This is a win-win for consumers. We can expect great strides from both players as they try to one-up each other.

Inrix
I don't know what to think about Inrix. I like their app and I like their traffic content, but I never use their app. Why? Because knowing the existence of traffic is only part of the equation. I want to know what to do about it and their app (at least for Android) doesn't tell me that. Frankly, the Inrix app is just not an app that will get my attention on my phone right now. From what I know, I don't see that Inrix has any role in either Google or Apple in this new smartphone navigation app battle. I am not knowledgeable enough about their business relationships to comment on what role Inrix has going forward that would have a direct consumer impact.

Others
I don't consider the other players worth spending much time on at this point. This is clearly a Google versus Apple battle. Players like Waze offer a unique solution. But I can't see them offering a compelling enough case to draw customers away from Google or Apple in enough quantity to create critical mass for their own crowdsourced apps. I see Waze as a small niche player that will drawn numbers similar to Open Street Map or Mapquest. Actually, I would bet good money that Waze will be acquired at some point.

ALK, TeleNav, Sygic, NDrive and the others have no upside in my view. There is just no compelling story here for any of them to justify not using Google or Apple. Once the general public gets a taste of the power of crowdsourced historical and real time traffic, these small niche players that don't have that data will have a hard time making a case for their app. Perhaps the inclusion of Inrix data in some of these apps will continue to be a compelling enough drawn for some people that are smart enough in this industry to know the difference and care but I have a hard time seeing a long term business case for these other players.

The same goes for the small PND players like Magellan, Rand McNally, etc. These players will turn into niche suppliers for specific industries like trucking, RV/Motorhomes, etc.

Conclusion
Who knows? How is that for a conclusion? We all talk smart about what will happen but the truth is that none of us know. I see:

1) Google continuing down their current path, crowdsourcing map data, using their users as probes for their historic and real time data, and using field vehicles primarily for streetview.

2) Apple will get a few months into their Apple Maps app and determine their confidence in building their own map data (ala Google) including using their users as probes to build their own historic and real time data. If they see roadblocks or think the data is building too slowly, I can see Apple making a play for TomTom to get TeleAtlas. I could also see Apple buying Waze instead to get the technology that Waze has and apply it to the user base that Waze doesn't have.

3) Garmin will remain as the viable premium old-school player in the market, still trying to convince the user base to buy dedicated devices. I can see Garmin making a play for Navteq as a fire sale from Nokia and trying to mold themselves into a services and software company. Their play could be premium map data, not relying much on crowdsourcing, built into premium apps and dedicated premium PND's.

That is my two cents on recent events.

The Case for Incremental Map Updates or "Why Google and Waze might be eating Garmin & TomTom's lunch!"

2012-06-08T21:27:00.002-05:00

Nothing frustrates a GPS user more than map mistakes. After all, that is what a GPS is supposed to do – efficiently route you to your destination on a map. Every user has an expectation, as unrealistic as it is that the maps will always be timely and accurate.

Rational users know that maps in your GPS will always and forever be a lagging technology. The maps will ALWAYS be out of date. The digital roads will always be “built” after the physical roads are. Even though we understand that, it doesn’t make it any less frustrating when we experience a GPS map error.

However, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t expect the GPS industry to innovate and compress the time between the physical road and the digital road. Has the legacy GPS industry done that? Are they resting or are they innovating?

Let’s take a look at the legacy GPS industry – those manufacturers primarily deriving their consumer revenue by selling hardware. We know these brands well – Garmin, TomTom, Magellan, etc. These legacy manufacturers sell hardware that contains digital maps on the device. Contrast that to a company like Google, Waze or Mapquest that is primarily a software company that serves you the maps online without dedicated GPS hardware. (However, with Google’s announcement this week that offline maps are coming to Google Maps for Mobile, the line will further blur – not good for the legacy companies.)

Let’s start with a basic undeniable truth. The legacy GPS industry as we know it is threatened by the smartphone. That pressure is only going to increase not decrease. Garmin tried to play in the smartphone market but couldn’t shake the obsession to make hardware. The idea crashed and burned. Now they are trying smartphone idea 2.0 which is the Garmin Smartphone Link app, which bridges the smartphone to the traditional PND through a Bluetooth data connection. The Android Market shows the app has been downloaded between 10,000 and 50,000 times. That is a paltry fraction of the GPS market (Google Navigation has been downloaded between 100 and 500 MILLION times) so it remains to be seen how long Garmin’s approach will continue to be supported by development resources. Coincidentally, a smartphone “link” to a PND was something that TomTom did years ago, but for all practical purposes has abandoned. In the smartphone space, TomTom has been available for the iPhone for a while. But as you know, they have been AWOL on Android despite talking about it publicly for nearly 3 years now. Time will tell if it is too little, too late should it ever become available. Garmin too, has an iPhone app but has shown no signs of making a US app available for Android.

This is not a blog post to discuss the merits of a dedicated GPS versus a smartphone. There are many things that a legacy GPS does better than a smartphone. But there is no question that the legacy GPS is finding itself in a position of having to justify itself and its cost more and more every day. Why spend $399, $299, $199 or even $99 when a smartphone solution is “good enough.” The phrase “good enough” should make Garmin, TomTom and the others cringe! The only thing that the likes of Garmin and TomTom should be focused on is to make their products so good that the smartphone solutions aren’t “good enough.” Alternatively, they could just become really great software developers and get firmly in the smartphone app game.

I come back to my opening paragraph and say that one of the things most important to GPS users is the maps. Customers want accurate and timely maps. Garmin could be leveraging their dominance in the industry by providing an innovative delivery mechanism for their maps. But to date, there is no public evidence that Garmin is or will do so. And finally, after a long introduction, that is the subject of my blog post today: the lack of innovation in the delivery of map updates.

Take a look at some advertisements that you see from Garmin or TomTom. You'll see that they are probably promoting the fact that their products have quarterly map updates. But, let’s step back. Is that supposed to be something consumers should be excited about? In 2012? I am not so sure about that. The fact that they still are advertising that as a feature today, I would argue, points to a lack of innovation in their industry. They should be embarrassed by that, not proud. I am not sure that they see it that way though.

The maps that Garmin uses in their GPS devices actually come from a vendor, Navteq (owned by Nokia). TomTom’s maps come from TeleAtlas, which TomTom owns. I have absolutely no inside knowledge of how this works. The following is complete speculation on my part. I could be completely wrong on this, but I’ve observed the industry for long enough that I think I know some of the details of how it works.

The quarterly update that you're spending hours downloading and installing tonight isn’t accurate up to the time the map is released. There is a lag between the data that Navteq provides to Garmin and the data that Garmin actually sends out to customers. That seems obvious, but you still see posts on the Internet from customers complaining that their street was added 6 months ago – why isn’t it in the map update I just got?

There is an additional lag inside Navteq. Certainly Navteq faces a “cut off” point in order to prep their data for delivery to Garmin. And thus the data that Garmin gets from Navteq is also not the most current data available. It is only the most current data that Navteq has in deliverable form. The actual data could be several quarters, to a year old or more.

The other day, I discovered a simple map error. Within a large intersection, an errant one-way segment was defined. It prevented a simple left turn from one major road to a US highway. It is the kind of thing that makes you wonder how the error gets there in the first place, that intersection hasn’t changed in 10 years, but nonetheless, it is there. It took me less than 5 min. to correct this error on Navteq’s website.

Five minutes. The error was fixed, by me, in five minutes. That, however, is not the important timeframe to care about. The question is, how long will I have to wait until that simple 5 minute fix ends up in my GPS so the maps quit generating a ridiculous work-around at that intersection? I will bet that I will wait a year or more before I will see that error actually corrected in my GPS.

Waiting a year for a map error fix that took me 5 minutes to correct online will ultimately try the patience of the legacy GPS consumer in a smartphone age to the point that customers, at some point, will simply not put up with it any more. Again, to sell a $299 PND in a smartphone age Garmin has to justify that cost, every day. Waiting over a year for a simple map correction is not a great way to justify a $299 product cost to your customer.

If the legacy GPS companies don’t start thinking and start innovating the delivery of their maps quicker than they are, I believe that they will continue to lose ground.

The legacy GPS companies might argue that waiting one quarter for map updates is a great thing, right? After all, it was only two years ago that we were receiving map updates once per year. And, after all, if you buy a car with a built in GPS, those updates are still only once a year. See! The legacy GPS companies ARE being innovative!

How legacy companies do compared to built-in GPS companies isn’t the relevant question. The relevant question is how the legacy GPS companies do in comparison to their REAL competitors – nimble software-thinking IT-centric companies that would laugh at thinking about the prospect of only updating their product once a quarter. These competitors are going to eat their lunch someday if they don’t change their approach.

In the time Garmin has continued to offer only quarterly updates, other companies have been thinking strategically and blowing the quarterly map delivery model out of the water.

Of course I'm speaking about alternative map delivery approaches from the likes of Google Navigation and Waze. Now, let me make something perfectly clear before I go on. I am in no way suggesting that the current iteration of these competing products are best in class or that they are better products than my current legacy GPS. I do not believe that they are. But again, that isn’t the question. The appropriate question is are they “good enough” to not spend another $299 on a PND and rather, to “settle” for the free alternative. Garmin’s job is to widen the gap to the point that the answer is no. In my opinion, Garmin is doing nothing to widen the gap.

Whether customers are familiar with Google’s MapMaker map editor or Waze’s editor is not really the point. I would argue that most customers also don’t contribute to Navteq’s Map Reporter or TeleAtlas’s Map Insight editor either. The relevant point is what happens downstream of those editors and what that means to the consumer.

Google and Waze have revolutionized the mapping world by developing a solution that pushes edited and moderated map changes to the customer quicker than the industry has ever seen before. As a Google Trusted Editor for my area, most edits that I map in Google MapMaker are updated instantaneously in the web version of Google Maps. THAT is innovation. Those edits find themselves pushed to the Google Maps for Mobile platform in a couple of weeks. Waze has a similar track record of updates, making changes available to customers within weeks of the initial edit.

The Google and Waze approach sets the bar going forward. It moves the “is it good enough” bar closer to the free smartphone solutions and away from the dedicated PND. Garmin just sits and lets it happen. In my opinion Garmin is in a bit of a bind. After all, they are using Navteq maps, which are owned by Nokia. Garmin gets to deal with the corporate bureaucracy of Navteq and Nokia, not to mention the bureaucracy within Garmin itself. The chance of nimble innovation with these three goliaths is likely too much to ask for frankly.

TomTom was on the right track, purchasing TeleAtlas so they own both the map and the delivery mechanism for the maps (the PND and the software). However, looking at the example of TomTom for Android, TomTom has proven to be no more nimble now than they were when TeleAtlas was a separate company.

What should Garmin do? Here is my premise: It is INSANE that in 2012, we are still downloading 2 GB map updates once per quarter. No, I not suggesting that we should be downloading 2 GB map updates once per month or once per week. I am suggesting that we should be downloading 10 KB or 100 KB or 2 MB map updates once per day, once per week or on whatever schedule we wish. TomTom is well known for stating that 18% of the road network changes each year. If that is true, why are we downloading 100% of the road network every single quarter? If a single map update is 2 GB that means that only 360 MB of that map actually changes in a year. Yet, in a year, if we perform all 4 quarterly updates, we are downloading 8 GB of data to obtain 360 MB of updates.

I have to wait over a year for a small (but important to me) map update to get incorporated into a massive 2 GB quarterly map update when it could have easily been pushed to me as a 10 KB map update a couple weeks after I fixed the error online.

Garmin should be innovating and pushing incremental map updates to customers. Full 2 GB map updates should be history. Incremental map updates would move the bar further away from the Google Navigation and Waze approaches and breathe life towards Garmin’s corner in the battle of “is it good enough?” In fairness, TomTom does have their MapShare program which pushes some incremental map changes to customers. However, we still face a large quarterly full download every quarter regardless of whether we use MapShare.

Critics will say “you don’t get it.” And you are right, I probably don’t. But I shouldn’t have to either. I am the consumer and it is my $399 that Garmin is trying to get. Clearly as the industry leader, Garmin should have the intellectual talent to innovate in these kinds of ways. What I believe they lack is the will. The more product generations that I wait over a year for a small map fix, the less likely it is that I will spend that $399 again with Garmin. THAT, I do get. The solutions from Google Navigation and Waze are very close to “good enough” today and that gap appears to be doing nothing but closing. Garmin should be very concerned with that.

Garmin - add this feature to this screen please! Finish it!

2012-05-26T11:58:00.000-05:00

One of the things I've learned after years of using Garmin GPS devices is that the GPS can be trusted 95% of the time. But that last 5% of the time - watch out! Therefore, I always take a quick glance at Garmin's selected route to make sure it makes sense to me. Garmin makes this fairly easy.

1) After a route is calculated, press the horizontal green bar at the very top center of the screen.
2) An route overview list is shown.
3) Click on the menu icon in the upper left of the screen.
4) Click on the word MAP.

Here you will see an overview map of the calculated route.

One of my continued critiques of Garmin is that their devices never seem to be completely done in terms of functionality. They never seal the deal. As the industry leader who still tries to push devices at the $399 price point, I expect the devices to be done. Here is a perfect example of being almost-done.

So, here we are shown a nice route overview map. It is relatively easily accessible in 3 clicks from the main navigation screen. Some Garmin devices, this being one of them, includes the ability to be shown multiple routes to your destination. That is a nice feature. But in typical almost-done style, Garmin doesn't connect the dots. What if I don't like the chosen route above?

It would make perfect sense to invoke the multiple route selection feature from this screen. With a simple menu icon in the upper left corner of this screen, we could be provided with a multiple route selection screen complete with ETA, miles and traffic delay on each of the chosen routes. Select one and go!

In fact, no where on a Garmin GPS, once you are navigating a route, can you ever initiate an overview screen of route choices to your destination. Take the example above. There are three perfectly good options to get from Des Moines to Dubuque. There are all within 10 miles and 15 minutes of each other on this 3.5 hour trip. But once you commit to a route, there becomes multiple ways to traverse a portion of your route after that. Let's say that I commit to the route above. Once I am near Cedar Rapids on I-80, there becomes three legitimate ways to get from there to Dubuque. As I approach Cedar Rapids, I'd love to regenerate route options quickly to select my preferred route for the remainder of the trip.

The multiple route option feature can only be selected on the initial activation of a route. So to be presented with those options again, you essentially have to select your destination again and start over. Hint: if you select your destination from the History list you can do this quicker.

From the screen above it is 9 button clicks in order to see route options other than the route shown on the screen. It could be done in 2 mouse clicks from the screen above if implemented correctly.

Garmin: have the courage to go all the way with your devices. Finish it.

Use your smartphone calendar as a GPS trip planning tool!

2012-05-26T11:17:00.000-05:00

You wouldn't initially think about using your smartphone calendar as a GPS trip planning tool. One of the drawbacks of Google Navigation, or any of the other navigation apps, is that they lack a planning tool. A trip planning tool is convenient when you are taking a trip that has multiple stops. Various 3rd party apps have been developed to attempt to fill this gap. But no one needs a 3rd party app to do this. Even more powerful is combining your smartphone calendar with your Smartphone Link compatible Nuvi to achieve some great functionality.

When we take our motorhome across the US it is not unusual to have a route that might contain 4, 5 or more stopovers including preferred truck stops, overnight campgrounds, or along-the-way sightseeing opportunities. Some of these stops can be somewhat tricky to find, especially remote campgrounds. Once we arrive at our destination, some of our sightseeing locations can be remote and difficult to find as well. While the motorhome gives us freedom, it also allows us to travel to remote areas that can't be navigated to with a standard street address. Trip planning to a series of stopovers with very defined street addresses may not warrant using this method. Users may find it easier to simply write the addresses on an index card and use the voice recognition features of your GPS to input them along your route. However, this method is most useful when your locations can only be described using latitude / longitude. Another example of this is when you want to take a specific route to a destination that you know the GPS won't calculate using the automatic method. The easiest way to do this is to find the latitude / longitude of the center drive lane of the road of interest and enter that latitude / longitude as a stopover point in your route.

If you are fortunate enough to have an Android smartphone, a Garmin GPS and Garmin Smartphone Link, I will show you how to use your smartphone's calendar as the ultimate trip planning tool that is especially useful for navigating to even the most remote places in the US.

This method leverages a little known fact about Google Maps for Mobile. It allows you to pass a latitude / longitude to it from 3rd party apps (like the Calendar app). The format is as follows:

loc:latitude,-longitude

There can be no spaces within that syntax. It all runs together, including the comma and the "-" ahead of the longitude. In one of my first posts about Garmin Smartphone Link I went into great detail about how you can use the Location field of the smartphone calendar to pass street addresses from your calendar appointments to your Garmin GPS. This technique builds on this wonderful capability and leverages the loc: syntax noted above.

At this point, some of you may be thinking I am crazy. After all, any Garmin GPS that can use Smartphone Link also has a built-in trip planning tool. True, however, in my experience at least, I have found that Garmin has a horrible track record of preserving the functionality of your trip plan across map updates. So if I am going to spend the time building a trip plan, I am going to build it in something that is fully under my control.

Let's pretend that we want to visit the Grand Canyon. I've read an article about a great scenic view from a place called Toroweap Overlook. Google Earth is a fantastic tool for finding places like this. Here is a view of the location of Toroweap Overlook from Google Earth. The actual location of the lookout is where the small photo icon is located. You can see the road on Google Earth.

Google Earth location of desired destination

A great feature of Google Earth is that wherever you hover your mouse, the latitude and longitude is shown at the bottom of the screen. As you zoom in closer you can get down to a very close level of detail, in this case to what appears to be a turn out along the road. Hover your mouse there and then write down the latitude and longitude. I continue using Google Earth until my entire trip stopovers and all of my sightseeing destinations are found and I've recorded the latitude and longitude. I prefer to put my entire trip in my calendar so I will also keep a list of destinations that include good street addresses as well.

From here, I move to my calendar. You can perform this step in multiple ways depending on the calendar you use on your phone. You can enter it directly into your phone's calendar, enter it in Outlook if you use Exchange sync or enter it on the web in Google Calendar. I will enter these directly into my Android device's calendar in this example.

After I've collected all of my trip data from Google Earth, I now enter it into my calendar. Using the calendar has the added advantage of being able to invite friends and family to the appointment, entering the travel itinerary in a way that is time-appropriate, having your work's free/busy functionality be accurate for your trip, etc.

Here is what this appointment looks like in my Android calendar, by putting the loc: syntax discussed above in the Location field of the calendar appointment:

Android calendar appointment for travel destination

All of the steps discussed above would be performed as a pre-trip, planning activity. Your calendar should be populated with all of the individual locations that you need on your trip on the days and times you plan to travel to them. Once your calendar contains all of your locations, you can head out on your trip.

Now we will discuss what happens on your trip. You should read this post first in order to better understand the capabilities of Garmin Smartphone Link.

When you head to your first destination, open your smartphone's calendar appointment and click on the loc: syntax in the Location field. It should be underlined. This will open Google Maps automatically and zoom into your desired location. You can visually confirm from Google Maps that the location is the same as what you manually found in Google Earth.

Google Maps for Mobile location of latitude / longitude of destination

Now, as outlined in my previous post, click on the latitude and longitude shown above in Google Maps. Click on the word "Direction" on the next screen. Then click on the blue navigation triangle at the bottom left of the next screen. Select "Smartphone Link" as the fulfillment action. This will pass your location to your Garmin GPS.

Here is the result of this location being passed to my Garmin Nuvi 3590LMT. Notice that the Garmin doesn't include this road, rather the closest known road is the north/south road to the west where the backwards "C" curve is located. This perfectly illustrates that it would be impossible to find and navigate to this specific location without the use of a tool like Google Earth as there is no viable street address.

As your travel day or vacation week continues, you simply return to your smartphone calendar for each stop and repeat this procedure. The actual procedure of clicking on the link in the calendar and transferring it to your GPS through Smartphone Link takes about 5 - 10 seconds. Arguably you can't enter a street address manually into your GPS in this amount of time. Even better, your co-traveling companion could do this for you while you drive.

Enjoy this great method of traveling planning. Follow me on Twitter for more.

Garmin Trip Planner App & ETA's - Disconnected?

2012-04-20T07:33:00.001-05:00

Sometimes the choices that manufacturers make in products just leave me shaking my head. For many of these things I can except the fact that I am not the target customer. I am a power user, but most products are made with the casual user in mind. This particular issue though leaves me shaking my head when I consider the viewpoint of any user of the product.

The Garmin 3590 is their flagship consumer product. It includes an app called trip planner. Trip planner is a great feature that allows you to build a trip in advance including multiple stopovers and route waypoints. A great option within trip planner is the ability to define a stopped duration time at any of the defined waypoints.

On Wednesday, I had a need to drive from Des Moines Iowa to Chicago Illinois and back in the same day with only a short 30 minutes stop in Chicago for some quick business. I know, it's insane, but some things just have to be done. There were two very important ETA's in this route. My ETA in Chicago was very very important. In addition I had to be home at a specific time in order to participate in one of my daughters activities. I knew exactly where I would stop for gas and exactly where I would stop for lunch. I built this route within the trip planner app and included the gas station stops as well as lunch and provided stopover times at each of these waypoints. Imagine my surprise when I activated this route and found that Garmin takes none of this stop over time into account into the ETA they present. They do take the additional driving time to get to the waypoint but they do not take the stop time into account. Absolutely insane.

If I build a waypoint into a route for a gas station, the route planner allows me to tell it that my stop time will be say, 20 minutes. If I am building a cross-country route that I will take in our RV, and I have three gas stops along the way, that is an hour of time that I will be stopped on my route. Using this feature, it allows me to get a more accurate picture of my route that day due to my stops.

So I am taking the time to build this route and I'm spoon feeding Garmin's routing algorithm the fact that the route will take one hour longer than it should, yet Garmin completely ignores this information.

I would love to hear the explanation for this one.

Garmin Nuvi 34xx/35xx updates firmware & Smartphone Link - Traffic Problems Solved?

2012-03-28T21:31:00.002-05:00

Today Garmin released firmware v6.2 for the Nuvi 34xx and 35xx devices, as well as a Smartphone Link for Android app update. The release notes make reference to several Smartphone Link and Traffic improvements that insinuate that perhaps we finally have a fix for an apparent problem that I outlined several months ago in this post and this post. I won't restate those posts other than to say that the problem was an apparent incompatibility when using both Smartphone Link Live Traffic and the GTM-60 HD traffic receiver.

After updating my Nuvi 3590LMT to v6.2 and upgrading my Smartphone Link for Android app, I set out to determine whether the problems have been solved. Tonight I report that I think that most of the issues are resolved. I say that I think they are resolved because there is one little nuance that I observed that I am not entirely sure how to interpret. In addition there remains one issue that appears to still be unresolved. Here we go...

I began this test with Smartphone Link connected and the Nuvi connected to a non-traffic-receiver DC power source. As expected, traffic was received without issue through Smartphone Link.

Smartphone Link connected, GTM-60 disconnected.

I then turned off my smartphone's bluetooth service and turned off the Nuvi. I turned the Nuvi back on with the non-traffic-receiver DC power source to ensure that all knowledge of any traffic detail was gone. I confirmed this by attempting to go to the traffic screen. I was shown this screen:

Bluetooth off / Smartphone Link disconnected / GTM-60 disconnected

Next, I connected the GTM-60 while bluetooth was still turned off (thus Smartphone Link disconnected). The Nuvi began to acquire traffic from the GTM-60 as shown in the following screen:

Bluetooth off / Smartphone Link disconnected / Obtaining traffic signal from the GTM-60

Once the GTM-60 successfully connected to the traffic service, I obtained traffic content. Bluetooth and Smartphone Link are still disconnected. You can be assured that the traffic being received comes from the GTM-60 because of the green signal strength bars at the top of the screen below. These are not present when using Smartphone Link as your traffic source.

Bluetooth off / Smartphone Link disconnected / GTM-60 connected

So far, everything works as expected. But it worked like this up to this point two months ago too. Now is the step that will test if anything has been fixed from two months ago. With the GTM-60 connected, I will now enable bluetooth and connect Smartphone Link.

Smartphone Link connected / GTM-60 connected

Yeah! Unlike what happened two months ago, I received a Traffic Up To Date message from Smartphone Link while the GTM-60 is connected. The traffic incident shown above was short lived and within a couple seconds of seeing this screen, the screen changed to this:

Smartphone Link connected / GTM-60 connected

This is still a positive sign. The GTM-60 is connected. Smartphone Link is connected. I am seeing messages that reinforce that this is working as it should. It is reporting Traffic Up To Date and No Traffic In Area. This reinforces that a signal is being received from Smartphone Link and the content of that traffic signal is no traffic content. However, while observing this screen I find that this screen only lasts a matter of seconds. The screen then switches to the screen below for a significant amount of time (several minutes). The switching from the screen above to the screen below is what makes me unsure that this is working exactly as I'd expect it to be.

Smartphone Link connected / GTM-60 connected

This screen is what makes me unsure about whether this is really fixed or not. This screen is only seen when BOTH Smartphone Link and the GTM-60 are connected. You never see this screen when using only Smartphone Link or only the GTM-60. Garmin needs to be consistent about the messages it presents to the user so that confidence is instilled in the user that the service is working as it should be.

I must presume how this should be working because Garmin doesn't document the specifics. I presume that there are two aspects of receiving traffic data on this unit. First, you must have a data connection to the traffic server. Garmin has provided us two ways to make this data connection, either using HD Radio through the GTM-60, or using bluetooth through Smartphone Link. Once this data connection is made to the traffic server, then we obtain traffic CONTENT from it.

When only the GTM-60 is used, Garmin nicely presents the status of the traffic CONNECTION by showing the green signal strength bars at the top of the screen. However, when the Smartphone Link app is used, there is NO confirmation provided to the user that there is a traffic CONNECTION being made. All we know is that there is a bluetooth connection to our phone. That is not the equivalent of the green signal strength bars when the GTM-60 is used. Bluetooth can be connected without there being a connection to the traffic server.

Therefore, when Garmin shows the message above "Waiting for Traffic Data" it leads the user to say "Why?" Why are you waiting for the traffic data? Do you not have communication with the traffic server? Or is this simply the dormant period while the Nuvi waits 2 minutes (or whatever the time is) before it checks for the next traffic message and everything is operating as expected? There is no way for the user to know this.

One thing left unresolved is the intelligent switching between Smartphone Link and the GTM-60 for users on a 3G CDMA network (Verizon, Sprint and others). On a 3G CDMA network there is no data connection while on a voice call. But when in a voice call, the Nuvi screen shown above never changes. This perpetuates the confusion. When on a phone call on a 3G CDMA network there is no way that the Nuvi will receive traffic data but it continues to say "Waiting for Traffic Data." There is no data connection available on the smartphone. The Nuvi should be intelligent enough to detect the loss of connection to the traffic server from the smartphone and switch to the GTM-60. Instead, the Nuvi sits there "Waiting for Traffic Data" when there is no chance of receiving it until the phone call is over.

This perpetuates the confusion of the "Waiting for Traffic Data" message when not on a call. Since it has been shown that this message is displayed while on a phone call when there is no possibility that it could be connected to the traffic server, it gives me no confidence as to whether I am actively connected to the traffic server or not.

The user should be shown the connection status to the traffic server, the signal strength of that connection (GTM-60 only) and the content of the traffic message. Those three pieces of information permit users to know what is happening with their traffic service at all times.

One other annoyance remains not addressed in this update. This issue involves Garmin's use of the green traffic icon on the main map display. Consider the following example: you are driving on the freeway between two major cities. You are using the GTM-60 traffic receiver. As you travel between major cities, somewhere in the middle you will be well beyond the reception range of the GTM-60. You are therefore not receiving any traffic content at all. However, because the GTM-60 is simply physically connected to the Nuvi, Garmin displays a green traffic icon on the map. This is inaccurate. A green traffic icon indicates that traffic is clear. The Nuvi doesn't know this however, because it doesn't have a traffic signal at all. The icon should be a gray or similar color to indicate a lack of a traffic signal. Visually, Garmin should not be presenting "No Traffic in Area" the exact same way as not having a traffic signal at all. It is inaccurate and misleading.

Bottom line - it appears that the traffic problems when using both Smartphone Link and the GTM-60 are resolved. However, there is much work that could be done to improve the presentation of this information to the user. And there is an unresolved problem for 3G CDMA users that still needs to be addressed. The majority of CDMA users will not be using 4G (which does allow simultaneous voice & data) until well after the 34xx and 35xx series devices will likely be discontinued. Garmin should fix this 3G CDMA oversight.

Garmin adds Tracker feature to Smartphone Link - Beware surprise privacy issues!

2012-03-28T19:04:00.002-05:00

Today, Garmin released an update to Smartphone Link which added an exciting feature called Tracker. Think of tracker as Garmin's version of Google Latitude. This feature requires an update to Smartphone Link in the Android Play Market as well as an upgrade to Nuvi firmware v6.2.

The Tracker functionality allows you to use your smartphone to keep track of other Garmin Tracker user's location. However, the Tracker feature also lets you post messages and location information to both Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly, Garmin's implementation of this feature seems to require both the Facebook and Twitter apps to be on your phone. You enable this feature from within the Smartphone Link app, not on your Nuvi. It appears to derive your login information for these services from the Facebook and Twitter apps themselves rather than having you enter them into the Smartphone Link app. When selecting the social network services you wish to use, appropriate permissions are requested and confirmed within the Smartphone Link app.

You can enable a "follow me" functionality that can be time limited. This feature allows you to select other Tracker users, as well as Facebook and Twitter posts, to be the recipient of periodic "check-ins" of your location. I have not yet experimented with how often the follow me check-ins occur.

There is also a manually initiated feature that allows you to "send" your current location to other Tracker users, to Facebook and to Twitter. You can select or deselect any of those services as you choose. Garmin has provided canned messages such as "running late" or "stuck in traffic" that can be selected. In a nice touch, Garmin has also populated the canned messages with messages that are "location aware." In other words, my current location city was populated as a select-able canned message. Also available was a message that said "it is 72 degrees here" obviously pulling that information from the Smartphone Link Advanced Weather feature. Job well done on this Garmin.

I selected a canned message that said "In Des Moines, IA" and posted it to Twitter and Facebook. The Nuvi presents a confirmation screen that the message was posted. Upon reviewing the resulting post on both Facebook and Twitter, I was pleased with the presentation, but also very concerned about the privacy implications of what I found.

On Facebook my message "In Des Moines, IA" was posted with the expected footer message indicating that it was posted by Garmin Tracker. But there was also a clickable image of a website in the post! On Twitter, it also said "In Des Moines, IA" but also contained a clickable URL!

When clicking either the Facebook or Twitter link, I was brought to this webpage:

I was very surprised to find the amount of detail being revealed that I found on this website. At the top of the page (not shown here) was my name, exactly how I'd entered it into the Garmin Tracker app. But more disturbing was the availability of data that included an exact street address, latitude / longitude, and speed I was traveling. There was also a map that included zoom controls that provides viewers with house-level precision of my location!

Perhaps I am too used to Google Latitude and its privacy controls, but I did not expect Garmin Tracker to reveal this level of detail about my location. I very often use social media to inform friends of my location, but in a very general sense. I might post that I've arrived "In Chicago, IL" or "Landed at LAX." But seldom do I want anyone but my immediate family to know my precise location to the level shown above.

The level of detail revealed by Garmin Tracker might be fine for my wife to know. But I probably don't want my Facebook friends to know that level of detail. And, for sure, I don't want my Twitter followers, who I might not even know, to know this level of detail.

Tying a location notification feature to your Garmin Nuvi makes perfect sense and it is well implemented by Garmin with this new Tracker feature. However, it badly needs user controls for the granularity of information shared, like Google Latitude currently offers. There are obvious reasons why, for the same location notification post, that I'd like my wife's Garmin Tracker ID to know my precise location, but my Facebook friends and Twitter followers to know only the town I am in. I can think of no case where revealing my speed is necessary or important.

Garmin has some work to do on disclosing and tightening up this privacy issue, but Tracker is a great start to a useful feature.

Garmin completely unresponsive to Google Play Market customer service channel

2012-03-27T13:32:00.002-05:00

At CES, Garmin introduced the Smartphone Link app to the Android Market. As I've blogged before, this app introduced integration between a conventional PND and the smartphone is some potentially powerful and profound ways.

Consumers beware: you better hope you don't experience any customer service issues with this app, because Garmin has been completely unresponsive to contact through the Google Play Market in over 2.5 months.

In previous blog posts, I've outlined problems with the traffic and weather features of the Smartphone Link app. In the course of troubleshooting these problems with me, Garmin telephone support had me remove the Smartphone Link app and re-install it. As part of that process you have to re-establish that you purchased the premium services in order to get them back. To do that, I "re-purchased" the Premium Weather feature. Once I re-purchased the Premium Weather feature, the system recognized that I also owned the other 3 services as well and re-enabled them automatically. I fully expected that since I purchased Premium Weather the day before, Garmin's system would recognize me as a customer of that feature and re-enable it. Imagine my surprise when I was billed AGAIN by Garmin for $4.99. Here is my purchase history from Google Wallet:

As you can see, I was billed on both January 9th and January 10th for Advanced Weather for $4.99 despite this being used on the same phone, in the same app.

No problem I thought. I'll just contact Garmin and get this resolved. As every software developer does, Garmin provides contact information in the Google Play Market for customer contact. With a huge company like Garmin, I would assume that this contact would be a contact best suited to deal with a particular issue like a billing issue in the Google Play Market. That is a pretty niche and obscure issue. Here is a screenshot of where Garmin provides this customer contact method inside of Google Play Market:

See the "Contact Garmin International, Inc." link above? Yes, so did I. I've used it twice. Take a look at my contact history above, thoughtfully summarized by Google in the Google Play Market order history. You can see that I first contacted Garmin on January 10th, the day that I was billed twice for the same feature. I received no response after a month. I sent a second request on February 17. Here we are, almost 6 weeks later and I've gotten no response whatsoever from Garmin.

In normal circumstances, I'd simply dispute this on my credit card. Clearly, I'd succeed. However, in this case, I am afraid that given Garmin's apparent incompetence at dealing with basic customer service issues, they'd fail to understand that this is a duplicate billing issue and rather assume that I was simply disputing the charge for Advanced Weather. The repercussions of this would be that they could simply shut off the app on the service side. Despite Advanced Weather not working like it should right now, I don't want to loose access to it.

This is very disappointing Garmin. Garmin badly flubbed their initial response to me when I reported problems with Smartphone Link. They've been in possession of detailed data about the problems, including screen shots, for over 11 weeks now with no fix being issued. And now as you can see, they've completely ignored a basic customer service contact for over 12 weeks. I'd call them about this but quite frankly I've got better things to do with my time than wait on hold for 30 minutes. I've used the customer contact method closest to the source of my problem, as provided by Garmin, and Garmin has completely ignored it.

In Garmin's investor relations information they proclaim in their Code of Conduct that Garmin's values "shine through in our interactions with customers." It is difficult to take that seriously given the experiences that I've outlined in this blog.

Garmin 3590 Road Test in LA: The good & the bad

2012-03-27T12:50:00.004-05:00

I just returned from a week long vacation to Los Angeles. During my trip, I drove about 480 miles in southern California traffic, using my Garmin 3590LMT the entire time. The verdict? It was a good experience overall, however I experienced two significant problems.

First, the good....The routing combined with the 3D Traffic service was very, very good. You can say one thing about LA - there is always "another way" to get everywhere. The Garmin unit seemed to find them. The unit seemed to do a good job in general, of avoiding traffic jams. There were three times when it actually got me off the freeway and back on later down the road to avoid a significant traffic issue. Unfortunately, in one case confirmed by visual confirmation, the traffic incident was false. Overall though, I was very impressed with the routing and the traffic. I've had very different experiences with the traffic quality on the 3590 in other markets, but in LA I found it to be very good.

The awareness of POV lanes, lane guidance and freeway sign imagery were extremely valuable on this trip. I do not know LA freeways at all. I am driving blindly for the most part, trusting the Garmin. Gladly, I could trust it and the guidance features it provides make a dedicated PND much better than most smartphone solutions. Had we been driving our RV instead of a rental car, I would proclaim the lane guidance (in particular) irreplaceable.

Unfortunately, the 3590 exhibited a significant problem with random rebooting. Upon landing in LA, my unit rebooted *6* times in the 30 minute trip from the airport to our condo. In the course of the week, the unit rebooted over a dozen times. This is very disappointing, but unfortunately par for the course with Garmin in recent years it seems. Do a Google search for Nuvi rebooting and you'll find thousands of discussions dating back to the 7xx series. Garmin can justify spending $300+ dollars on a PND in a smartphone world only if they can show significantly better features and rock solid reliability. The features? Yeah, I think they do that. Reliability? Not so much.

Upon rebooting, I found the unit to have very sketchy reliability in terms of reconnecting to bluetooth on my smartphone. Since I am using Garmin Smartphone Link, reestablishing smartphone bluetooth connectivity is essential to getting my traffic content back - a must when traveling on LA freeways. In many cases, the only way to reestablish bluetooth connectivity with my smartphone was to disable bluetooth in the Nuvi settings and re-enable it. Having to do this changes the reboot problem on the 3590 from an annoyance to a complete hassle. A random reboot on a Nuvi is like a Windows blue screen of death. It makes you cuss Garmin as much as people cuss Microsoft. Frankly, I expect better from Garmin.

The second big problem that I experienced is with the Smartphone Link Advanced Weather feature. I outlined the complete failure of the weather alert feature in a previous blog post. Unfortunately, the performance of this feature got worse on my trip. I have two locations set in the weather alerts settings. I have my hometown (Des Moines, IA) and my "current location." While traveling in LA, I routinely received WINTER STORM ALERTS while driving in LA. Huh? It was March, in LA - there is no winter there. Of course when I pressed the weather alert icon, I received no information because Garmin isn't providing the text of the weather alerts as I outlined in my previous post. Perhaps, I thought, the alert wasn't for my current location in LA, but rather was for my other defined location of Des Moines, IA. However, the problem with that idea, is that I knew that on that day in Des Moines the weather was approaching 80 degrees! In no way was there any Winter Storm Alerts in Des Moines, IA or Los Angeles, CA last week. Had Garmin implemented this feature in a way that actually shows us the text of the weather alert, I might have been able to figure out what was actually going on. Since the weather alert text content is blank, it is impossible to trouble shoot. What I know is that from this experience and the experience that I outlined earlier the Smartphone Link weather service is not worthy of a charge and I would not recommend that anyone purchase it until Garmin fixes the problems.

Garmin Guidance 3.0 Traffic - not impressed

2012-03-15T07:32:00.001-05:00

I have had some time now to play with both the new Garmin 3590 as well as my previous Garmin 3490, both of which have new Garmin guidance 3.0 along with the new Navteq HD traffic.

While these are both pretty good PND devices, I have to say that my experience so far with the traffic service is pretty underwhelming. I mean, it is great that the higher bandwidth service provides us with more granularity in the traffic data. However, if the content is just wrong it doesn't matter how granular it is, it is wrong.

I have run into many situations with the traffic service where it leaves me scratching my head as to how the traffic data can report what it is reporting. Or worse yet, not reporting what it should be. Navteq has always had an arrogance about themselves. It would just be nice if that arrogance were backed up by rock solid product content.

A recent example was a trip to Las Vegas. There's an intersection of two major freeways just south of the strip in Las Vegas. This interstate intersection and several portions of the connecting interstates is in the middle of a major construction project. This construction project has closed several ramps between interstates. And when I say closed I mean closed as in "the pavement has been dug up" closed. I don't mean closed as in "hey we need to close this ramp for half a day so we can move some equipment in and out" closed. If you go to the DOT website for Nevada, this construction project and these closures are well-documented. But despite all that, my Garmin backed by Navteq traffic, tries to route me right through the closed ramps on the course of my trip.

I mean really Navteq. How hard is it to hire an intern and tell them to review the websites for the DOT? Is it really that hard to incorporate documented construction data into your traffic service? In 2012? Wow.

They have the opposite problem in other areas. In the Des Moines market, Navteq has a perpetual traffic delay at exit 68 where I-35 connects to Iowa 5. There is no delay there. It doesn't exist. And without question, that delay does not exist 24 hours a day. This is Des Moines Iowa folks. There is no traffic delay that exists outside of about a two hour window during rush hour.

Today, traveling on I 88 into Chicago I was warned of a 9 mile 15 minute delay. Here's a picture of what the road looked like smack dab in the middle of that so-called delay. This wasn't I 88 in Chicago mind you. This was I 88 in the middle of rural Illinois about 100 miles west of the closest Chicago suburbs. Short of a meteor landing in the middle of the highway, there is no traffic out here. Ever.

I will spend the following week in Los Angeles. I look forward to seeing what kind of accuracy this new traffic service has in a major market like LA. I will blog about my experiences when I return. So far, to say I'm underwhelmed is an understatement.

Garmin Nuvi 3590LMT vs 3490LMT Comparison Pictures

2012-02-23T17:51:00.001-06:00

I picked up a Garmin Nuvi 3590LMT today to replace my Nuvi 3490LMT. The 3490 will grace my wife's car from now on. On paper, I wasn't expecting a big difference between the 3590LMT and the 3490LMT, especially when looking closely at the specs. My wife simply needed a new unit, so I figured I'd order the newest one for myself while I had the opportunity. These two devices are generally referred to as a 5" model and a 4" model respectively. But when you examine the spec sheets and look at the actual dimensions you figure out that there really isn't a 1" difference. That led to my lack of expectation for a big difference.

Wow! Was I wrong. I frankly don't care what the spec sheet says. The 3590LMT is huge compared to the 3490LMT and I like it 100% better for that reason only. I found myself having to really focus on reading text on the 3490LMT especially on things like photoReal junction imagery. Those concerns are gone with the 3590LMT.

Here are some comparison pictures between the two devices:

The difference in the screen experience in this photo is real. The 3490LMT is brighter, but the colors are more washed out. The colors on the 3590LMT are more rich and deeper. I much prefer the 3590LMT screen after having both devices side by side.

Something is up with the routing on these two devices. I have the exact same route calculated on both devices. The two devices agree 100% on the route to take. They agree on the miles. But the 3590 has me arriving over 2 hours earlier than the 3490 on this 22 hour trip. I've never driven it so I don't know which is more accurate. Also note that the 3590 is 2 hours quicker WITH a red traffic icon, showing a 15 minute delay leaving Las Vegas. The 3590 is getting a traffic signal through Smartphone Link. The 3490 does not have a traffic source.

I wonder, since the 3490 has no traffic source in the photo above, if because of that it doesn't take historical traffic data into account? Perhaps that feature only works when there is a traffic source connected?

The only other difference between the two units is that the 3590 has a firmware v4.70 upgrade available for download out of the box. The 3490 reports the latest available as v4.40. Not sure if the firmware update has any impact on routing calculation or not.

There is no difference in glare on the two device screens. The apparent glare on the photo above is strictly a limitation of the environment that I took the photo in.

There is a thickness difference as well between the two devices as can be seen here.

I was somewhat disappointed to see that, out of the box this brand new unit had two-version-old 2012.2 maps installed. I had to do a map update out of the box to get to 2012.4. Not sure why a brand new device that just shipped two days again would have 6 month old map data on it. I could see having 2012.3. Perhaps I simply don't understand the production cycle on devices like this.

Finally, note that currently the 3590LMT has the same problem of an incompatibility between Smartphone Link Live Traffic and the HD Radio traffic described in my earlier blog posts. No update from Garmin as of yet to fix this problem.

TomTom and Android - My View

2012-01-21T17:53:00.003-06:00

One of the lingering questions in the turn-by-turn navigation industry is why TomTom has failed to answer the challenge that Android has presented them. Because of TomTom's (near) silence on the issue, we are left to speculate. Here is my speculation. TomTom does not have an Android solution for one of the following reasons:

They want a solution but can't get it out the door for technical reasons.
They don't want a solution and view it as a strategy to compete with Android. (Doubtful)
They view partner solutions as "good enough."

Each of these are viable reasons, based on TomTom's own actions.

Let's start with public comments made by TomTom executives in 2009, yes almost 3 years ago. In 2009, senior VP for TomTom onboard mobile Benoit Simery was quoted as saying "We cannot ignore such a successful platform as Android." Well, it is three years later. You've done a pretty good job of ignoring it so far.

Android was growing in 2009, no question. Today, however, Android's popularity dwarfs what it was in 2009. It would be one thing if TomTom was blind to Android's growing popularity in 2009, but clearly they weren't. Clearly Android's popularity exploded since that statement was made. Yet, not only was TomTom unable to muster a response to that popularity that allowed them to ride the popularity wave upward, they remain without an answer to this day, nearly 3 years later.

In the spring of 2011, another TomTom executive, Corinne Vigreux made a public statement that "(they) are currently working on an Android version." TomTom would have been better served by Ms. Virgreux not saying a word. To state that, yet not deliver almost a year later, fuels technical incompetence discussions.

TomTom publicly announced the need to address Android in 2009. They publicly announced, two years later, that they are working on an Android solution. Now, nearly a year after that, they still haven't delivered.

TomTom's own mobile discussion forum is dominated by two discussions posts, both discussing Android. Between the two posts, they have received 27,000 views - by far the most of any posts on the forum. Yet, despite TomTom's willingness for their two executives to speak publicly about Android on two occasions, they have allowed these two threads to develop and be viewed over 27,000 times without a single comment.

If TomTom truly wants an Android solution but can't get it out the door for technical reasons I question their technical competence. ALK, Navigon, Waze, Mapquest, Sygic, NDrive, NNG and others are all on at least their second generation Android products. There is no reasonable explanation for why a technical problem is preventing TomTom from getting a first generation product to the Android market.

I rule out TomTom not wanting an Android product as a (misguided) strategy for how to compete with Android, given the two executive comments highlighted above. If there has been a change of heart at TomTom about Android then TomTom owes their customers a similar pubic statement indicating that they will not support Android. Close the door on the issue if that is the case.

If TomTom is content with partner solutions like Route66, my personal opinion is that this is a highly misguided strategy. Maps are becoming a commodity. Automated map correct solutions, such as those being used by Waze, will make solutions like TomTom MapShare obsolete in my opinion. TomTom appears to have no answer.

In my opinion, the only company today, with the power to differentiate their maps from a competitive perspective is Navteq. TeleAtlas has greatly improved from years ago, but I personally do not believe they are equal to Navteq when it comes to the details. Compare the text of a Navteq freeway exit sign image to the text of a TomTom freeway exit sign image and you will see what I mean. Navteq's text is usually 100% accurate when compared to the actual freeway sign. The TeleAtlas text is usually close, but often times appears to have been built from the Exit number and intersection road names only, positioned on a sign to look like a sign. They often lack the specific text of the road signs themselves, like the city name, landmark and other details that are unrelated to the actual exit number or road name.

All of this leads me to this conclusion, which is my personal opinion: TomTom does have two pieces of valuable intellectually property left, that are currently not commodities. However, their lack of an answer for Android squanders any remaining advantage of that intellectual property on a daily basis. I believe that the US market will look back at TomTom and say "remember when TomTom screwed up their Android strategy? They had a shot at one time." Will TomTom become tomorrow's Kodak?

TomTom's remaining, valuable intellectual property is IQRoutes and HDTraffic.

Clearly TomTom/TeleAtlas had a competitive advantage over Navteq with IQRoutes. Navteq is in catch up mode on that feature. But TomTom is allowing Navteq to catch up. A competent TomTom strategy would have been a strategy that leverages the head start of IQRoutes and builds on it to remain far ahead of Navteq. Smartphones, both Android and iPhone, had to be a key part of that strategy for it to work. TomTom is blowing that opportunity.

IQRoutes (and HDTraffic) needs users. Users are TomTom's probes for these features. These features are nothing without users. For these features to remain accurate and thus valuable, they need to continue to be fueled with user data from a growing user base.

TomTom should be doing everything in its power to continue to build its user base, in order to preserve the value of its intellectual property of IQRoutes. Instead, TomTom has been completely incompetent on an Android strategy, which has resulted in not adding users. For users that have switched to Android as their navigation choice, TomTom gets nothing from them. Out of nearly 1,000,000 potential customers PER DAY, TomTom get NONE of them. TomTom is allowing Waze to succeed at TomTom's own game because of TomTom's lack of a competent Android strategy. Do you think TomTom will ever get those users back? I think not. Even if TomTom eventually does come up with a competent Android strategy, they have given their potential customers so long to use a competitor's solution that I think most of them will say "so long TomTom" for good.

But in my opinion, TomTom still has a small chance. They do still have a large customer base and solutions like Waze have a long way to go in mid to small markets where IQRoutes is more complete. If you read a TomTom Facebook post, you will see that it is getting increasingly difficult for them to not get bombarded with customer posts blasting them about their lack of Android presence on nearly anything TomTom posts there. While that has to be unbelievably frustrating and perhaps embarrassing for TomTom, they should see one sliver of good news in the current situation: customers still care.

When customers quit caring and asking for a TomTom for Android solution, that is when TomTom should be very, very worried. That day is not far off.

Garmin Nuvi Speed Limit Alerts - A Lost Opportunity

2012-01-21T16:45:00.003-06:00

My current Garmin GPS is a Nuvi 3490LMT. I've owned it for about 2 weeks. Prior to that, I've owned about 8 Garmin GPS devices going back to the very first StreetPilot III. But after owning the 885T, I took a couple years off from Garmin products due to my frustration with Garmin's products and their support.

As I've said here before, Smartphone Link is what brought me back to Garmin again. But that doesn't mean that my frustration with Garmin has gone away. Little things that I've encountered over the last 2 weeks have fueled that frustration again.

The Nuvi 3490LMT, until next month, is the top of the line. It does one thing: it is a PND. It is priced the same as most smartphones and some tablets - both of which are devices that do much more than a PND does. In my opinion, for Garmin to continue to sell $399 PND in a smartphone world, it better do navigation better than anything else can do navigation. In many ways, the 3490LMT delivers on that expectation. But in some ways, and they are seemingly simple things, Garmin drops the ball. Dropping the ball on the little things reduces the justification for buying a $399 PND and further props up their smartphone competitors.

One opportunity that Garmin is squandering is the handling of speed limits.

Navteq map data has historically been best in class. It remains to be seen how crowd sourced solutions like Google Map Maker, Waze and OpenStreetMaps will change that. But today, I'd argue that given all the characteristics that make a map accurate (roads, road class definitions, speed limits, freeway signage, etc.) Navteq remains best in class by a large margin.

Navteq's knowledge of speed limits is very, very good. It amazes me to drive down rural highways in the middle of Iowa and see the speed limit indicator change almost simultaneously with the speed limit sign as you drive through a small town. Companies that use Navteq data have an advantage to leverage.

Garmin leverages Navteq's quality speed limit data in a half-hearted way at best. They should do better.

Why does this matter?

It is rumored that with the release of iPhone 5, Apple will implement a built-in turn-by-turn navigation solution based on some quite acquisitions that they've made. Clearly Android has had that advantage for some time now, which has created pressure on traditional PND manufacturers like Garmin, TomTom and Navigon. If the iPhone includes this capability as well, the pressure on Garmin and TomTom will only increase.

Garmin must continue to innovate and be better than anyone else for customers to continue to justify spending as much as a smartphone for a dedicated PND device. Google Navigation and any future built-in iPhone solution will NOT have Navteq maps. For the remaining time that Navteq remains best in class, Garmin should leverage that advantage to the greatest extent possible. They aren't.

Garmin's current implementation of a speed limit alert feature seems to smack of a company that thinks it is the king of the marketplace - resting on their laurels, rather than a company that faces an ever increasing challenge to their entire consumer business model in the near future. It is almost as if they just want to check off a marketing spec sheet box that says "speed limit alerts" rather than actually improving the feature to make it useful.

My most significant complaint about Garmin's current speed limit implementation is the inability to use the feature without actually looking at your GPS. Currently, the only speed limit alert that Garmin has is a "feature" which turns the speed limit sign on the screen red in color when the speed limit is exceeded by 1 MPH. This means that the user is informed that they are exceeding the speed limit only on the off chance that they happen to be looking at their PND screen. The technology should permit so much more and customers of a $399 PND should be demanding it.

Here is what Garmin should do to fix their current speed limit alert implementation:

Garmin has a TTS engine on the GPS. USE IT. There should be no reason that Garmin can't use the TTS engine for a simple "Speeding Alert" message.
A notification of speeding at 1 MPH over the posted speed limit is not useful. Car speedometers don't permit a visual accuracy of 1 MPH. No one cares if they are speeding by 1 MPH. No policeman cares if a car is speeding by 1 MPH. There is no way that knowing you are speeding by 1 MPH provides any safety benefit whatsoever. It is a complete waste of a potentially useful feature. Garmin should give customers a simple menu option to select the speed overage that they care about. At a bare minimum, the alert should be set at an overage that actually means something, such as 5 MPH.

There shouldn't need to be a blog written to address the two things mentioned above. Customers should have expected that kind of improvement from one firmware version to another shortly after speed limit alerts was first introduced.

What Garmin should be doing, is moving beyond the fixes noted above, in order to continue to innovate and leverage the quality of the Navteq data they have. Garmin should be adding features such as:

Proactively warn customers of an upcoming speed reduction on their route such as when driving into a small town where the highway speed limit changes from 55 MPH to 35 MPH or other drastic changes using TTS voice alerts. "Caution: Speed Limit Reduction Ahead." Now that is useful use of the available Navteq data.

Garmin: use the differentiating data that you have at your finger tips and give us differentiating features.

Garmin Smartphone Link Advanced Weather - Half baked or Another Broken Feature?

2012-01-19T17:03:00.001-06:00

I am 10 days into my experience with Garmin Smartphone Link. Since my initial post my clear excitment for the strategy has wanned somewhat as I've run into some technical problems.

Something is not right with Smartphone Link Advanced Weather. At least I hope it is a technical problem. If this is how it is intended to work, then I've been duped into thinking Garmin got the Smartphone Link strategy right. If this is "how it works" I was clearly wrong. Advanced Weather is a premium annual subscription option in Smartphone Link. Here is what Garmin says about it:

So far, the animated radar images have worked fine - as have the current conditions and the forecasts. Today's problem is with the severe weather alerts feature. Today we had our first instance of severe weather in my area. As I am driving on a route, my Nuvi alerted me. Cool, a weather alert! Look at the black weather warning icon below:

A few minutes later while at a red light, I clicked on the black weather alert cloud. I looked forward to reading about this weather alert. Here is what I got:

I got nothing. What I expected on this screen was the text of the severe weather alert at a minimum. I thought that Garmin might surprise me, given that it is a GPS, and actually show me more than text. Perhaps they will show me a map with the area of the alert highlighted - maybe with an overview map of my current route overlayed? Nope. Instead I get a black screen.

Yes, Smartphone Link was connected fine. Yes, my phone had a data connection. Yes, other Smartphone Link services were working. That isn't the problem.

A few minutes later, driving on the route, I received another severe weather alert. This time the black cloud icon changed. Notice the '2' underneath the cloud symbol. That must mean there are now 2 severe weather alerts.

This time, after pressing the cloud, I come to this screen:

That is better! Now I see that I have been notified of 2 winter storm warnings. Great. Let's find out more. I clicked on each of the yellow banner icons:

I got nothing. Again. Over the course of the day, the cloud icon built up to 5 alerts in quantity with 5 identical winter storm warning boxes with 5 blank black screens when you clicked them. Clearly there is no useful purpose in how this feature is currently implemented, assuming of course this isn't a technical problem.

Three explanations that I can think of:

The feature is half-baked and what I expect to happen above isn't done yet. In this scenario marketing had to get Smartphone Link out by CES and engineering wasn't ready. In that case, the fact that they are charging a subscription fee for the above is just bad business.
The feature is fully implemented but isn't working correctly. In this case, some things clearly haven't changed at Garmin.
The feature is fully implemented and this experience represents what Garmin had intended the feature to do. If that is the case then run people. Run as far as you can from these subscription services in Smartphone Link because they are an utter waste of your hard earned money.

This feature is significantly lacking in substance.

Why show me multiple, identical "Winter Storm Warning" icons if you aren't going to tell me the details of the multiple winter storm warnings? What good does knowing there are multiples of them do me?
What possible good do these warning provide me when you don't tell me anything about their location? Are they near my current location, along my route or near my destination? What time did they start? What time do they end? What is the nature of the weather event I'll experience during the time span of the alert?

Think about it Garmin. I HAVE a smartphone, or I wouldn't be using Smartphone Link. I HAVE free weather programs available from multiple vendors. I can access weather information with my voice on my smartphone with SpeaktoIt, Nuance Dragon Go, Vlingo and others. I don't NEED one more weather app. What I NEED is Garmin to leverage that weather content against my current location and planned route and present it to me in an innovative way that only can be done on a PND. The above, if that is truly it, fails badly at this.

Garmin Smartphone Link - Ideas for Improvements & New Features

2012-01-13T07:38:00.004-06:00

If you read this blog you know my enthusiasm for Garmin's new Smartphone Link app for Android. If you don't then read here to catch up. Here is where I'll keep a running list of all the ideas for fixes, improvements and changes to the Nuvi with Smartphone Link. Here we go:

Add a proximity alert feature to photoLive traffic cameras. When you drive through the defined point, show a preselected camera video in split screen.
Provide an indication of bluetooth connection status on the map screen.

In my use of Smartphone Link I've found the bluetooth connection to be generally good but finicky at the same time. I've been driving for awhile and only when I by chance returned to the main menu screen did I learn that the Nuvi wasn't connected via bluetooth.

Provide an ice warning when the weather data indicates precipitation and the temperature indicates < 32 degrees.
Show the current temperature on the map screen while in a route. This is important when traveling in near-freezing conditions.
Develop a "Meeting Travel Planner" in Smartphone Link.

Read my phone's calendar.
Read the address from my calendar appointment's Location field.
Obtain my phone's current location.
Calculate the travel time to my next appointment in the Garmin Cloud.

Take knowledge of current traffic conditions into account.

Alert me on my smartphone that I need to leave for the appointment, including a user defined amount of extra minutes.
Pass the destination from the calendar appointment's Location field to my Nuvi.
Send me on my way.

Subscribe to this blog to be notified as I add more ideas.

GSM or CDMA? Why YMMV with Garmin's Smartphone Link

2012-01-12T22:59:00.003-06:00

I'm a couple days into the use of Garmin's Smartphone Link with my Nuvi 3490LMT.

Today my 2 hour drive included a 1 hour conference call. The Nuvi bluetooth provided for an easy, safe method of carrying on a conference call for that length of time. I really don't need to carrier my Motorola T505 bluetooth speakerphone anymore. One less device in my bag!

Bored, and 15 minutes into the call I realized that I no longer had traffic content. Duh! I have a CDMA phone. And of course we all know from the AT&T iPhone commercials that only AT&T (GSM) allows you to enjoy simultaneous voice and data. Using Verizon? Sprint? Another regional carrier using CDMA technology? Nope. Sorry. You can have voice or data, but not both at the same time on the 3G network.

When Garmin fixes the Smartphone Link and GMT-60 issues so that Smartphone Link Live Traffic can be used while plugged into the GMT-60 I hope that Garmin thinks through how the Smartphone App and the GMT-60 should work for CDMA customers.

Without any proof to back up this statement, I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that today's typical customer of a $400 PND and the Smartphone Link app is a tech-savvy road warrior. And being one of those likely means phone calls while on the road are a regular occurrence.

Based on what we know today, the HD Radio Traffic from the GMT-60 appears to take a back seat to Smartphone Link Live Traffic. This means that it appears that if Smartphone Link is active and connected to your phone, the Nuvi uses Live Traffic only and not HD Traffic.

Take a phone call on a CDMA network though, and you've got a problem. While your Smartphone Link app and Nuvi are still bluetooth connected during a voice call, your phone isn't receiving data from your CDMA cellular carrier so your Nuvi isn't receiving any traffic content from your phone. Take a call on a long stretch of rural Interstate - no problem. Take a call during the last 15 miles into downtown Chicago and you've got a problem!

If your using Smartphone Link, your Nuvi has this perfectly good GTM-60 HD Radio Traffic receiver sitting around doing nothing but providing power - it should be able to provide traffic content to your Nuvi in the event of a loss of content from the Smartphone Link app.

It is my hope that Garmin improves the detection and switchover of traffic sources between Smartphone Link Live Traffic and GTM-60 HD Radio traffic in an intelligent way. Clearly the Nuvi knows that the phone is in voice call mode because the Nuvi is capable of handling the call. I think that Garmin should include logic where the Nuvi automatically switches to the GTM-60 HD Traffic receiver when the phone is in a voice call state. Garmin could include a menu setting that asks the customer what cellular carrier they are using (or detect it somehow through the Smartphone Link app - is that possible?). For GSM carriers - no switchover is necessary. For CDMA carriers the switchover could be implemented.

With both the GTM-60 and Smartphone Link at the Nuvi's disposal, I hope Garmin doesn't settle for a complete loss of traffic content during a CDMA voice call as being an acceptable operating scenario just because one of two available sources isn't available any more. Switch us to the other source Garmin - please!

A Note About Me

2012-01-12T22:31:00.001-06:00

I am self-admitted GPS fanatic. I have been for years. I remember my first rental car when the Hertz Neverlost system was first rolled out. When I learned that this was actually a rebranded Magellan system that consumers could buy I was elated - until I found out the cost. The technology was reminiscent of cellular bag phones. There was a huge "black box" that had to be hidden away somewhere with multiple cables running to the head unit. And then I found Garmin and their StreetPilot III and I've never looked back. Oh how fun those days were - when full map coverage meant a combination of City Navigator and MetroGuide and you hoped like hell that those two products matched up at their boundaries. I remember a route from Des Moines to Madison, WI where the GPS told me the electronics equivalent of "you can't get there from here." We've come a long way since those days!

Here is my GPS experience since then:

Nav experience: Garmin SP III, SP 2710, SP 2730, Garmin i5, Garmin c330, Garmin 760, Garmin 885T, Dash Navigation, TeleNav for Sprint, TomTom 740 Live, CoPilot Live v8, Navigon for Android, Navigon for iPad, ALK CoPilot Premium, Google Navigation, Waze, Garmin Nuvi 3490LMT w/ Garmin Smartphone Link.

I've actually owned and used all of those devices - some for hundreds of miles, some for thousands, many for tens of thousands. In every case either the technology moved on, or I moved on from the technology (the i5? Wow was that painful!). Each product's story is different - why I bought it and why it ran out of favor with me.

And now I found myself with the Garmin Nuvi 3490LMT w/ Smartphone Link. It is, without a doubt, the single best overall navigation experience I've had. The Nuvi 3490LMT by itself is not. I let that product stay on store shelves for a long time, until the day that Garmin announced Smartphone Link. Once it was announced (it's announcement was a surprise to me), I was at Best Buy within 2 hours with a 3490LMT in hand. A month ago I would have been the first to tell you that there is no role for a $399 PND in a $299 smartphone world. Smartphone Link proved me wrong.

I have an order placed for the 3590LMT as well. I look forward to its ship date. And when it arrives, my wife will enjoy a very nice 3490LMT product while I will take over the 3590LMT as my main GPS device.

Garmin has nailed it with the Smartphone Link app, initial problems aside, and I look forward to many miles of enjoyment.

Navigation Test - 1 Route, 8 Products

2012-01-12T18:00:00.000-06:00

There are a a lot of reasons why people choose navigation products. Today, there are a lot of choices to pick from. Smartphone navigation has gained popularity in recent years on both Android and iOS platforms. Dedicated PND's have seen their market share decline but they continue to try to innovate. Garmin's release of Smartphone Link for Android is perhaps one of the most innovative approachs to the PND that we've seen in the last couple years. I wrote about it here.

Arguably though, what matters most is accurate maps and timely ETA's. Who meets that challenge the best? I decided to try and find out. I have, at my disposal, a Garmin Nuvi 3490LMT, a TomTom 740 Live, an iPad 3G and a Samsung Galaxy S2 Android smartphone. Here is who I tested: Google Navigation, Telenav (for Android), Navigon* (for iPad), Mapquest (for Android), Waze (for Android), MotionX Drive, TomTom (TeleAtlas), Garmin (Navteq). All products used were the current versions of the app, or current version of an available downloadable map.

* Note: this test was done prior to Navigon's new app with the optional map update subscription, however, the test did include the most recent map version Navigon made available at the time. I could not test ALK CoPilot because they can't get their new software to run on some (my) US variant of the Samsung Galaxy S2.

There is a particularly challenging route in the Midwest that really separates the men from the boys when it comes to routing algorithms and map accuracy. It is the route from Des Moines, IA to St Louis, MO. Here is what that route looks like:

I picked this route because it provides so many challenges to overcome when determining the best route. The highlighted route is, in my opinion, the best route to take. Why?

99% of this route is a 4-lane divided US or State highway at a speed limit of 65 mph, with some limited 55 mph zones near towns.
There is only 1 through-town section where your speed has to reduce to slower speeds. But it is also a good, and necessary, gas stop along the way.
It is one of the shortest options when total miles are considered.

What makes this route challenging?

About 60% of this route is known as the Avenue of the Saints. This is a federally designated highway system connecting St Louis, MO to St Paul, MN.

The Avenue of the Saints starts in St Louis and the route above follows it completely until the route turns directly west halfway between Keokuk, IA and Mt Pleasant, IA.
Note: The Avenue of the Saints continues directly north from where this route diverts to the west, through Iowa City, IA and eventually up to St. Paul, MN.

To create this Avenue of the Saints, extensive construction was required over about a decade, to make this route 4 lane.
As part of this extensive construction, a significant number of highway bypasses were constructed around small towns. What used to be a 2 lane highway directly through many small towns is now a 4 lane highway bypass around nearly all of those towns.
This route uses almost no freeways until the last 25 miles in the metro St. Louis area.
There are many tempting alternatives.

Des Moines to Kansas City to St Louis - it's all freeway.
Des Moines to Davenport to Peoria to St Louis - it's all freeway.
Des Moines to Iowa City then south to join this route - it's more freeway at least.

As you can see, this route is a great test. It tests the company's map accuracy. It tests their road speed accuracy. It tests their algorithm. It test their bias for things like freeways. And it tests their ETA accuracy.

This route, with an actual speed that averaged no more than 5 mph over the posted speed limit took 5 hours and 35 minutes to drive with 2 refreshment stops that included a gas fill-up along the way.

Obviously, I could not use all 8 of these solutions while driving. Instead, while parked at my starting location, I calculated a route to the same final address on all 8 products and immediately recorded the resulting ETA. I did this on all 8 devices within 5 minutes of each other. I calculated the route at approximately 10:00pm CST in hopes of minimizing any bias from traffic reports.

Here is how they did:

Google Navigation: 6 hours 37 minutes (off by +1 hour 2 minutes)
Telenav: 6 hours 28 minutes (off by + 53 minutes)
Navigon: 7 hours 0 minutes (off by +1 hour 25 minutes)
Mapquest: 6 hours 16 minutes (off by + 41 minutes)
Waze: 6 hours 34 minutes (off by +59 minutes)
MotionXDrive: 7 hours 11 minutes (worst result, off by +1 hour 36 minutes)
TomTom: 5 hours 53 minutes (off by +18 minutes)
Garmin: 5 hours 44 minutes (off by +9 minutes)

This is a single route. This is not a comprehensive test of different routes. It is not a scientific test. It is simply one real world example that applies to me personally. For this route, on this day, there are some interesting conclusions:

The so-called advantage of "online" maps isn't an advantage at all.

Online maps should be more accurate because the latest maps is always available.
In practice, for this route, every online map provider fails to live up to that claim and has squandered the leverage they could have.
Online maps were actually some of the worst performers in the test.

There is a curious difference between Navigon and Garmin - both Navteq customers.

There could be differences between Navigon and Garmin's routing algorithm that accounts for the some of the difference in time. In my experience, they are pretty close generally, on other routes.
More likely, we are seeing a real life example of what Navteq gets accomplished in sequential map updates. As I stated above, this test was done before Navigon changed to their new quarterly subscription update option. Therefore, the Navteq maps in their app were older than the Navteq maps in the Garmin Nuvi.

The crowd-sourced map approach doesn't yield best in class results. Both Google Navigation and Waze are in the middle of the pack when it comes to the route time.

While Google did select my opinion of the ideal route, their ETA is way too conservative - a common complaint about Google Navigation.

Crowd-sourced "real world" speeds seem to be having an impact. TomTom IQRoutes, once considered the king of "real world" driving conditions seems to be continuing to hold its own, at least in this limited test.
Garmin's ETAs were always pretty good. It appears that with their map data now incorporating trafficTrends functionality, that their ETAs might be getting even better. They clearly were spot on in this test.

Strike 1 for Garmin Support's Response on Smartphone Link

2012-01-12T10:45:00.000-06:00

I've documented, in detail, my problem, testing and conclusions about a potential conflict between Garmin's new Smartphone Link Live Traffic service and the GTM-60 HD Radio Traffic service. You can read about that in detail by clicking here and here.

I also did what any good customer should do and filed a detailed support ticket using the Contact Us support feature on Garmin's website. They have a specific menu selection for the mobile team, and the Smartphone Link product. I would assume then, that this would go to someone knowledgable about the Smartphone Link app - someone who could start to assist in solving this problem.

Arrogance is not something I like. But good lord Garmin, between my email below and this blog, I've spoon fed you 1000% times more than most consumers are going to on this problem. Solve it. Don't blow me off with marketing auto replies and call that support.

Here is what I sent Garmin (click to enlarge):

And here is the ridiculous response that I got (click to enlarge):

In response to a detailed technical support question, complete with screen shot example links, I get back basically an auto-reply marketing brochure for the product that I am having a problem with. Note: this is NOT the auto-reply that I got immediately after filing the support claim. This is the "personal support" response that I waited 3 business days for.

I actually did call the 800 support number the night that I started having this problem. Her response was "Is Smartphone Link a Garmin product?" "Where did you get it?" "What does it do?" Really Garmin?

So between a clueless telephone support response and a I-could-care-less email auto-reply response, it appears that Garmin support is about what it was when I quit using my 885T out of frustration - useless for anyone that happens to know a thing or two about technology and electronics.

Really Garmin? Is this the best you have to offer your customers who are purchasing your latest and greatest products? Frustrating beyond belief.

Impress your Siri-Loving Friends: Garmin's Smartphone Link & SpeakToIt Assistant - Your iPhone Can't Do This!

2012-01-11T21:40:00.002-06:00

Siri is cool. No question. But it can't do it all. Once in awhile I love to show my "no one does it better than Apple" friends something that someone does better than Apple. That day has arrived with Garmin's Smartphone Link app for Android, a compatible Garmin Nuvi and Assistant by Speaktoit. This is the closest you can get today, to natural language processing on a PND.

I've previously covered the awesome (and largely undocumented) features of the Smartphone Link app. Smartphone Link combined with Assistant by Speaktoit provides you with one of the most user friendly and fast navigation interfaces that I've ever seen.

Using Assistant by Speaktoit is beyond the scope of this post. But it is voice recognition - how hard can it be, right? The Assistant app can be started on Android in a number of ways. A simple application shortcut can be installed on your main screen. There is a widget available for quicker access directly to the voice recognition engine. Or the app can even be assigned to the long-press of the search key on your phone. Take your pick.

Now for the Garmin integration. Check it out:

Start Assistant using the method of your choice discussed above.
Speak your search such as "Show me the nearest coffee shops."
Within Speaktoit, you will see a Google Map "widget" of the nearest coffee shops.
Press the large quadruple arrow button (looks like a cartoonish "X' button) in the upper right hand corner to open the Google Maps app. Speaktoit passes your spoken search query to Google Maps automatically.
Now that Google Maps is open, follow the instruction in my previous blog post to pass this to your Nuvi.

This may seem like a convoluted process. In reality it takes about 10 seconds from the time you speak your search to the time your Nuvi has the address. Do it twice and it will become second nature. Handsfree. Voice Recognition. Natural Language Search. Fast.