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(iPhone App
Review)
AT&T
Navigator: GPS Navigation
for monthly fee on at&t bill
•
(iPhone Hardware Review)
Gomadic 3G
Auto Windshield Holder with Car Charger
(updated 11/09/09)
I'm testing the AT&T GPS Navigator
app utilizing the
Gomadic Auto
Windshield Holder and a 8GB 3G
iPhone. The iPhone 3G has GPS
built-in.
The original iPhone will not
work. The 3GS iPhone will work best
because of its faster processor. This
app
is free for the first month.
AT&T has allowed me to use this app,
free for an extended amount of time
for the purpose of
this review. No deal
was made that I should give a good
review. I would like to say 'thank you'
to the agent
at at&t, Santiago Ramirez,
for his insight into the process of
testing a software device over a
reasonable
amount of time.
AT&T Navigator: GPS navigation
for monthly fee on at&t bill
At first I didn't like it. After a while I
decided that the 'traffic summery'
was the best reason to use this
app.
It is easy to use the buttons.
I'm starting to like this app more and
more. With the new improvements
in
the software updates this app is
maturing nicely.
PROS:
Live traffic
updates.
Onscreen live route delay warnings.
Live traffic summery screen.
Program from my contact list.
Create favorites lists.
Search intersection address.
Search by business type or name.
Search airports by
code or city.
The app if free to download.
The 2D and 3D map view is clear
and easy to understand.
It loads the maps over 3G in real time, which doesn't fill your phone will maps.
You
can control iTunes audio with pause, play, forward, reverse, playlist, and volume from the
screen.
CONS:
Because maps are used in real time,
when the GPS signal is
lost, GPS does
not update and you might miss a turn.
This also may be true when the
cellular signal is lost.
It could be one
or the other, or both. I'm checking
that with Telenav.
•
No traffic summery is available for
alternate routes, so that you can
judge if you are taking the best route.
•
$9.99 for monthly service would be
a better value at $3.99. At $119.88
per year you should test it during the
one month free trial to decide if it is
worth it for your personal needs.
Once the kinks are worked out it
might be worth the monthly price.
I'm not sure yet.
•
Sometimes it lists your position on a
parallel side road or a cross road until
it puts you back on track once
you’ve
passed it.
•
No GPS signal can be found, at times.
When
entering Vermont from the
Massachusetts border, GPS asked
me to come back later. I did.
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Once I was a half a mile south of my
destination and the GPS wanted me
to proceed 15 miles south instead of
a half a mile north to my destination.
I had to use Google Maps instead.
•
If you manually enter a destination
that is NOT in your address book it
will NOT be listed in ‘Recent
Places’
if you have to restart the app.
BEFORE traveling to a destination
you should first list that
destination
in you address book. If you don't,
you will have to re-type in the
address each and every time
you
restart the app. The fastest way
around this software bug is to
search the address of your
destination
in Google Maps and
then store that address in your
address book before you launch
the at&t Navigator
app.
•
Traffic Alert icon appears on screen
but no traffic info is listed
in the
‘Traffic Summery’ screen.
•
At times ‘Traffic Summery’
page only
shows traffic info starting 5 to 15 miles
ahead but not close enough to help.
•
Reroutes around traffic can double
your distance, such as a 25 mile trip
becoming a 50 miles trip. You should
check the ‘Map Summary’ screen to
see if the new route is screwy and
use some self determination
to know
when to ignore at&t's app while it's
running.
•
Tap the
screen with one finger to
zoom in, as expected. Tap the screen
with two fingers, it zooms in when it
should
zoom out. at&t’s app doesn't
play by Apple's rules.
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Rotation
from vertical to horizontal
now works in the 'Drive To' mode.
It doesn't work in the ‘Maps & Traffic’
mode. Sometimes you just want to
know where you are, when you're in
your own 'no particular place to go'
mode. Rotation doesn't work in any
mode other than 'Drive To' mode,
which means that you have to unclip
your dash or windshield mounted
iPhone to program it in the vertical
mode and then wait for the map to
appear, once that happens you can
return it to its mount in the horizontal
to use the 'Drive To' mode. If you
want to use any other mode you
have to remove or rotate your mount
to use it in the vertical position, if
for
instance, you are going to use the
‘Maps & Traffic’ mode. This could be
dangerous if
you try this while you're
driving. One fix is to ignore the
horizontal mode altogether, until
horizontal
mode works in all modes.
•
If you have mounted your iPhone in
the horizontal
position and you start
the app, it starts in vertical position.
You have to remove it from your
mount, turn
it into vertical position,
wait for it to change to horizontal
position and then remount it. The
program
need to sense its current
position at startup. Whenever it is in
the horizontal position in the ‘Maps &
Traffic’ mode, the app should know it.
•
The voice directions, besides
telling
you all the pertinent information you
need to know also tells you a LOT of
information you DON'T
need or want
to know. After telling you to make a
turn, and you make that turn, it tells
you to continue
onto that road. If you
have made the turn you have no
choice but to continue onto the road.
You don't need
to know to continue
onto the road you're on at every exit
you pass. You don't need to be told
to continue
on the road you're on
after the toll booth if you have no
option to make a turn. Two seconds
later it give
you the same information
but adds the route number of that
same road. There needs to be a user
setting,
to screen out all this
unnecessary chatter, it's pointless
and distracting.
•••
Using a battery charger is a must for
all but the shortest trip because
having the screen on all the time
can
drain your battery. Turn off the app
from the bottom button. Turning off the
iPhone from the top button
just turns
off the screen and leaves the app
running with audio alerts, while the
app continues to run,
and it WILL
drain your battery. You MUST turn
off the app using the bottom button to
stop the app, just
like you stop any
other app on the iPhone.
One thing you should know is that
there are times when apps
seem to
misbehave because the iPhone is
having a problem on it own that might
be blamed on the app. It can
happen.
The iPhone is not perfect... yet.
Can you dig it? I knew that you could.
Come back often for updates
to this column.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Gomadic 3G Auto Windshield Holder with
Car Charger
The quality is apparent the minute you
take it out of the box. It is an excellent
piece of engineering and very sturdy.
It easily fits just about any thing you
want to place in it, like an iPhone
in or
out of it's case. In more than a month
it has stuck to my windshield and has
worked flawlessly.
(more soon)
AT&T Navigator
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GriffinTechnology
iTrip FM Transmitter
with App support
for iPhone & iPod Now
you can transmit your
sounds to your car stereo or any
sound device with an FM tuner.
You can you control your
iPhone
or iPod, with gloves on. Because
the iPhone and iPod use a touch
sensitive screen, you normally
have
to use your galvanic skin
response, also know as touch
in Apple's world, to control it.
Until Griffin released
this device
your only other choice has been
a capacitive touch screen stylus.
Now you can control your music,
podcasts or whatever you listen
to while not having to illuminate
your screen, which saves your
battery.
There are buttons for play, pause,
rew, and ff. You can select stereo
or mono. You can turn on or
off
SmartSound™, change frequency
to anywhere on the FM band and
save three for frequencies for a
quick change, when needed.
The info will illuminate and scroll
as each song starts, which is
easier then
turning on the screen,
activating the slider to turn on the
phone and having to navigate to
your iPod screen
to see what's
playing, not to mention trying
to read the tiny text on the
phone. You
don't have to use the iTrip with FM. You can simply plug your
earphones and still have control of your iPod or iPhone. Not
only will the iTrip work with all iPhones and iPods but I have tested
it with the iPod Classic and it works! There
is a free App that works with the iTrip which you can find in
Apple's iTunes Store.
This is a fantastic product that
adds a LOT of
functionality and
works very well. A must have! One
note: while this has a strong transmitter, It will have problems in
all the traditional places, over bridges, in congested cities areas where
a lot of metal is around. You will probably get static, more or
less. This is one of the problems that all transmitters have.
It's too bad that the FCC doesn't allocate a few select frequencies
just for FM transmitters that would be clear of
any radio stations, there's an idea.
(My full review will be posting
soon)
V
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iPhones and iPods should be able
to
sync to two computers. If you try to sync
more than one computer to your iPhone
or iPod, each time you sync
your device
will be erased and overwritten. I have
music on my PC and Podcasts on my
Mac. I have to manually drag
and drop
music and Podcasts to keep my data
from being overwritten. Doing it this way
is both cumbersome and tedious.
•
Turning on the iPhone & iPod by
pressing the button alone should
be enough to turn
on the device.
Having to use the slider, which
can take two or three attempt in
a shaky environment like in a
moving
car, is overkill. The slider
is so cool, it's uncool.
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Song titles should
scroll across the
iPod screen if it doesn't fit. This
should be a selectable option. When
a song title contains
more characters
than the screen can display, the full
title is truncated, such as when a title
contains the Artist
Name - CD Title -
Song Title. With the iPhone the problem
persists in the vertical mode, but
seems to be relieved
when you
rotate the display and the Cover Flow
screen provides more room for text.
Apple
should fix this.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
(The following text is part of a new
column
which will have its own space
soon)
APPLE
SOFTWARE SUGGESTIONS
MobileMe Membership should be free
for Mac owners.
When you buy a Mac,
MobileMe should be part of the package,
but if you use a PC you will have to pay
the price
for MobileMe membership.
If you use a Mac most of the software
you need comes with it. When you buy
a PC you have
to go looking for the
software you'll need.
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(Mac OS Computer Software)
(Coming ..... )
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