[Coolstorm]

last question: does it support speed cameras and red light cameras warning or indicating?

[DanielleHoran]

Originally Posted by goatcatcher

Are Sensis/WhereIs maps still completely useless outside the cities or have they improved over the past couple of years?

I'm hoping someone will write a turn-by-turn app for iPhone based on the Navteq maps: in my experience the roads on those maps are actually in the right place, which helps.

Hi there goatcatcher, I work for Sensis and thought you'd be keen to read about a recent review by Choice Magazine – a trusted information source for Australian consumers – who looked at 17 of the leading GPS devices in Australia and tested them for their May publication. The review benchmarked leading brands such as TomTom, Garmin, Navman, Uniden, Mio and the recent ALDI model.

The testing involved selecting and routing to six random destinations in Sydney – a railway station, an airport, a university, a medical centre, a golf course and a sports complex – all starting from the same point. Travel times and distances were also measured between all 17 systems.

The review found Whereis demonstrated superior quality in terms of mapping accuracy (notably in regional Australia) and was the data powering each of the first seven ranked devices.

Not sure which particular areas you’ve had trouble with I am happy to look into any specific queries you have.

Please feel free to email me - Danielle.Horan@sensis.com.au

[mitty]

I'm sure the sensis maps themselves are fine. It's the abominable user interface that goes along with them, at least the online and iphone versions, which are truly terrible. Google just win hands down as far as that goes with ease of use. Even though the whereis maps app is allegedly free on the iphone for Telstra users, I never use it because Google is just light years ahead. Okay it may not be terribly accurate in some spots but for me it works 99.9% of the time.

[eaglesteve2]

The speed limit warning is based on the actual legal limit for that stretch of road rather than an application wide parameter, right?

What about school zone warning? Does that warn you regardless of time, or is it smart enough to warn only during school days in the designated time slot only?

In addition to speed camera, does it also warn of red light camera?

How is the vendor support like? I emailed them a few days ago but never got any response. It's causing a bit of concern to me.

[PCKid]

It would seem to me that if you shop around you can pick up a reasonably good dedicated GPS for around this sort of money. Would have thought that apps would be more around the $50 mark as a purely add on app.

[Muzzer]

Originally Posted by PCKid

It would seem to me that if you shop around you can pick up a reasonably good dedicated GPS for around this sort of money. Would have thought that apps would be more around the $50 mark as a purely add on app.

Ya joking. Where can you get a compete hardware and software system like this for $80?

Even if you can, the point is that it's all in the one system with the iphone and you don't need to carry all the other separate GPS system around.

I just reckon some people are complete tight arses and don't want to pay a reasonable price for anything. Someone has to pay for the big bucks that a company like these guys have put into the development of this.

[macaholic]

I'm wondering what the licence fees are from Sensis.
Must be huge.

[dingl]

Originally Posted by Coolstorm

last question: does it support speed cameras and red light cameras warning or indicating?

If it doesn't i haven't seen it pop up or how to enable it yet.... ill take a deeper look tomorrow for it tho.

Been playing with this app since this morning and impressed, the speed for recalculations is amazing and was surprised at how accurate this can be compared to other GPS devices.

[Coolstorm]

well. Finally I bought this software this morning and did test full day.I would say it is not bad. It has not given me any suprising satisfaction so far. However, I got some information by Sygic Mobile 2009 Review, if you check the information as below, it seems we can use some adds-on into Sygic GPS software, but how in iphone???


Sygic comes with with some speed camera data preinstalled but this is not particularly accurate and does not use directional data. You can disable the alerts for these cameras via the 'Radar Warnings' under advanced settings. Thankfully you can add 3rd party speed camera data! As per TomTom there is an option for 'Warn When Near POI' which you set up in a surprisingly similar way. After using Sygic's conversion software to convert Tab-delimited Speed Camera files to UPI files you simply copy them to the memory card then select the appropriate sound for each camera type/speed. Even better is the fact that Sygic Mobile 2009 supports ogg sound files so you can even use the PocketGPSWorld.com voice warning files! Sadly, Sygic Mobile 2009 does not support directional warnings and also treats SPECS (average speed) cameras as individual cameras rather than a 'zone'.

[andytlr]

Originally Posted by Coolstorm

Sygic comes with with some speed camera data preinstalled but this is not particularly accurate and does not use directional data.

Not speeding is always an option.

[MissionMan]

Originally Posted by andytlr

Not speeding is always an option.

True, but sometimes I use them as a reminder to check your speed and the speed limit and often they are found in areas where the speed limit has just been reduced (school areas for example)

[Coolstorm]

but the info about red camera and speed camera is really handy, and wondering how can we add these into Sygic seperately according to the instruction above.

[andytlr]

Originally Posted by MissionMan

True, but sometimes I use them as a reminder to check your speed and the speed limit and often they are found in areas where the speed limit has just been reduced (school areas for example)

Yeah totally. But indication of speed limit, and indication of where speed cameras are, are two different things.

"Dad, radar!" "How much did that thing cost?" "70 bucks" "Just paid for its self"

[nbetts]

Ok after living with this for a few days now there are some small annoying things i hope they fix in an upate soon.

The Music interuption issue is a pain. The instruction need to be able to pause music and then go back to playing after.

I find the inputting for a destination a bit laborious. if they could streamline that more it would be great.

slightly inaccurate at times. i find sometimes you are in the turn by the time it tells you to start turning.

Lane assist is not all that brilliant but works ok. could be a bit more accurate.

A more localised voice would be good.

[andytlr]

It'd be nice if Apple included simple turn by turn navigation to the Maps app. Still using Google Maps data. Just a simple voice over that read out the Google directions at the appropriate time. Far from a fully fledged turn by turn GPS, but enough for most people.

That would have been a compelling 3GS feature.

[eaglesteve2]

Originally Posted by andytlr

It'd be nice if Apple included simple turn by turn navigation to the Maps app. Still using Google Maps data. Just a simple voice over that read out the Google directions at the appropriate time. Far from a fully fledged turn by turn GPS, but enough for most people.

That would have been a compelling 3GS feature.

If you prefer "free" map that requires 3G connection, try xGPS, a jailbroken map application with turn by turn instruction, but I strongly discourage that.

I saw Navigon already released for European countries. That will be one cool GPS navigation system other than Tom Tom.

[motef]

Originally Posted by eaglesteve2

I saw Navigon already released for European countries. That will be one cool GPS navigation system other than Tom Tom.

Have you used the Tom Tom app?

[matthew858]

Originally Posted by motef

Have you used the Tom Tom app?

The app isn't even out yet!

[Lutze]

Originally Posted by andytlr

It'd be nice if Apple included simple turn by turn navigation to the Maps app. Still using Google Maps data. Just a simple voice over that read out the Google directions at the appropriate time. Far from a fully fledged turn by turn GPS, but enough for most people.

That would have been a compelling 3GS feature.

In some ways I agree with you... but in others I have to say that Google maps are, in the words of the lord jobs, a bag o'hurt!

My route out of here to a nearby town takes me down the Perth > Darwin highway according to Google... a road that does not even exist!

[eaglesteve2]

Originally Posted by motef

Have you used the Tom Tom app?

On window mobile platform only. On iPhone I've just watch some demo video, and it looks very good.