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TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

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Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#21

Post by petecooper »

kleiba wrote: post #3

For the youngens here on HN: TomTom was once one of the leading manufacturers of GPS navigation systems for cars - purchased as an accessory that was stuck to the wind screen. This was in a time before every car had a screen built in, and before everyone had a smart phone with Google Maps in their pocket. I guess that product is a prime example for becoming irrelevant by society progressing. I actually still use an o…

>TomTom was once one of the leading manufacturers of GPS navigation systems for cars - purchased as an accessory that was stuck to the wind screen.

I'm of an era where my first TomTom was an external GPS receiver that connected to a PDA (Palm Pilot?) via Bluetooth, with all manner of cradles, wires and such. The GPS receiver needed to be re-paired each time I made a journey.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#22

Post by acomjean »

kleiba wrote: post #3

For the youngens here on HN: TomTom was once one of the leading manufacturers of GPS navigation systems for cars - purchased as an accessory that was stuck to the wind screen. This was in a time before every car had a screen built in, and before everyone had a smart phone with Google Maps in their pocket. I guess that product is a prime example for becoming irrelevant by society progressing. I actually still use an o…

I had one. It worked pretty well but sometime took a little while to “lock onto” the gps signal.

I think the cloud based gps on phones won for being free and having traffic info.

My Tom Tom had the “mr T” celebrity voice yelling directions at me. A friend had John Clease. This is before gps directions told you street names, but with ai I think they could manage this again.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#23

Post by petesergeant »

lukeqsee wrote: post #14
nevi-me wrote: post #8

It sounds like TT will be a net taker from OSM, I hope they contribute as much as they benefit, as otherwise it would sound like they're giving up on prop-mapping by cutting costs. It's a press release I suppose, but saying the world lacks an open platform, and processing to use such open platform, sounds a bit weird

Every company starts as a "net taker" until they find their contribution niche, so I'm not concerned. Besides, the positive effect of more eyes seeing OSM and more companies caring about its quality cannot be understated. (I can point to dozens of examples of this.)

> more eyes seeing OSM and more companies caring about its quality cannot be understated. (I can point to dozens of examples of this.)

I'd love to hear more about that

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#24

Post by bearmode »

acomjean wrote: post #22
kleiba wrote: post #3

For the youngens here on HN: TomTom was once one of the leading manufacturers of GPS navigation systems for cars - purchased as an accessory that was stuck to the wind screen. This was in a time before every car had a screen built in, and before everyone had a smart phone with Google Maps in their pocket. I guess that product is a prime example for becoming irrelevant by society progressing. I actually still use an o…

I had one. It worked pretty well but sometime took a little while to “lock onto” the gps signal. I think the cloud based gps on phones won for being free and having traffic info. My Tom Tom had the “mr T” celebrity voice yelling directions at me. A friend had John Clease. This is before gps directions told you street names, but with ai I think they could manage this again.

You can already install celebrity voices with Waze

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#25

Post by afknewsagency »

fs111 wrote: post #10

I worked at Tele Atlas/TomTom until 10 years ago. There is literally nothing new in this announcement except that they are going to "steal" data from OSM now. sensor derived data, user generated content, camera vans all of that is not new. All this existed when I left, so did the people mentioned in this announcement that are still running the show. I always hoped they would eventually realize that they need a fresh…

10 years is quite a long time for things to change though. Sure many sources might have existed for a long time, but it sounds like the way the company is going to use them, how quickly it will turn them around will improve. It's not transactional per se any more, more real-time (depending on the specific use or update). As for the same management, depending on your perspective, that might be a sign of stability. Judging by the press release this morning, company has solid order book and is reporting a record 2.4 million euro automotive order book.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#29

Post by wokwokwok »

I’m not sure what I just read, but it felt like it was AI generated.

… full of words, and absolutely no information.

Even the linked page (https://www.tomtom.com/tomtom-maps-platform/) really doesn’t make it even remotely clear what they’re announcing, or why we should care.

> The world lacks a truly open and collaborative mapping ecosystem, one that doesn’t follow a one-size-fits-all model but is flexible so that businesses can build according to their needs

What does that even mean?

I’ll tell you what it means: no, our API pricing for whatever this service is will not be public, not be self serve and not be for small time developers to play with.

Ah wait, I get it!

> With its new map, TomTom is using AI and machine-learning techniques to speed up the process and make a much greater volume of changes in a much smaller period of time. With the masses of data used, the quality of the new map will be a step above what’s currently available on the market

I see! You’re going to compete with google maps and others but you’re going to pour The AI Machine Learning on your offering to make it better than the others.

…well, I guess we’ll see how it goes.

That approach (same as everyone but we have AI!!!??!?…?) is really a bad business model.

The problem is that everyone is doing it; and only a very small number of people are doing it at a level that makes any meaningful difference, and for those companies it’s a core competency, not a value add.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#30

Post by kleiba »

ShivShankaran wrote: post #13
kleiba wrote: post #3

For the youngens here on HN: TomTom was once one of the leading manufacturers of GPS navigation systems for cars - purchased as an accessory that was stuck to the wind screen. This was in a time before every car had a screen built in, and before everyone had a smart phone with Google Maps in their pocket. I guess that product is a prime example for becoming irrelevant by society progressing. I actually still use an o…

>since I don't have a smart phone holup. what do you mean? like you don't own one or don't use one?

I've never owned one. As you can tell from the opening statement of my original comment above, I'm old.

Surprisingly, I seem to be able to go through life just fine, so don't worry.

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