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TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

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Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#31

Post by bearmode »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #20
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…

> a prime example for becoming irrelevant by society progressing There's still the use case of driving in remote areas with less-than-ideal or expensive connectivity (though probably those spots don't really require sophisticated nav), and also that you might not want to tell ad monopolies your location data.

In those situations, just download offline maps to use?

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#32

Post by helsinkiandrew »

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…

Their revenue from 2009-2022 tells the story:

https://companiesmarketcap.com/tomtom/revenue/

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#33

Post by jclardy »

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 remember a time when my family called any GPS head unit a “TomTom” - not sure if it was that way outside of my family though. Almost like they nearly had “Kleenex” levels of brand recognition. Unfortunately for them the iPhone moment happened. iPhone GPS wasn’t nearly as good, and they even had an app on the iPhone (That sold for almost as much as a separate unit, at a time when developers could actually sell paid-up-front apps on the app store…)

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#34

Post by izacus »

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 find your post funny, since I'm regularly using TomTom on my Android phone because it has a better UI and some nicer car navigation features than Google Maps. Based on the number of downloads and TomTom's financials, I'm not even close to being alone.

I've also seen it as a default navigation provider in many car brands so I find your bubble biased post pretty funny - and kinda sad, because we see a lot of those here these days. Is it really so hard to stop for a second and think whether there might be people out there that don't share your preferences?

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#35

Post by johannes1234321 »

6stringmerc wrote: post #17

So who is going to be the first to merge street data with a driving sim so I can race around familiar streets at my wont? Of course it’ll eventually lead to GTA VR ugh but I can at least get what I want…blasting a Jesko on the Dallas north tollway at full chat

Guess for most places there is too little data for 3D models and design factors, making the places hard to recognize ...

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#36

Post by globular-toast »

brnt wrote: post #12
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…

> old car that doesn't have a screen (well, it does, but didn't come with a GPS built in I used to pick up and deliver lease cars from/to customers, and I'll never forget the Audi which had navigation, but no screen! There was a two line text display, which would show textual directions. It was an interesting experience!

Yeah, VAG cars totally support having navigation with no screen! It seems quite funny by today's standards, but I guess the idea is it's like having your passenger navigate and read directions to you.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#37

Post by acomjean »

wokwokwok wrote: post #29

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…

“We’ll dive deeper into how TomTom will use OSM data soon, so stay tuned.“

So this was an announcement of an announcement…

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#38

Post by tim_hutton »

Semaphor wrote: post #7
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #6

OpenStreetMap is the second most-important resource on the Internet, after the Wikipedia.

And if you are on android, there’s a super simple and easy, lightly gamified, app to help improve their data: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/StreetComplete

This is an excellent app, it works very well. Thanks for linking.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#39

Post by afknewsagency »

wokwokwok wrote: post #29

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…

I take the exact opposite away...

> a flexible thing that businesses can build on according to their needs.

And if you go to their dev website... you can find the pricing for their current APIs/SDKs... So it's not like they're hiding it.

https://developer.tomtom.com/store/maps-api

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#40

Post by lozenge »

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.

If it doesn't lock on straight away, it also asks you if the clock is set correctly.

I think those older GPS chips might only use the US-operated GPS system while modern ones can consider other positioning satellites as well. And they also can't download AGPS data of satellite drift from the internet, so they need to get it from the satellites themselves.

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