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TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

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Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#421

Post by n0tth3dro1ds »

theiz wrote: post #417
sanguy wrote: post #414

TomTom like Here and Garmin are fighting to try to stay relevant in a market that has been seized by Android Auto and CarPlay. The issue is the car vendors do not want to surrender their navigation and entertainment to Google and Apple as navigation system options at >$1500 and ongoing updates are precious margin and recurring revenue that they all desire. With Android Auto or CarPlay they give that all up. They are…

I don’t think you have read the article. TomTom is changing from navigation device maker, to map maker. They already did that, Apple Maps uses TomTom data for example. There is however a new market that will grow: autonomous driving vehicles. These need more data, and more or less real time if available.

> There is however a new market that will grow: autonomous driving vehicles

This market is shrinking and will continue to shrink.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#422

Post by LAC-Tech »

gambiting wrote: post #384
jstummbillig wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just better. Definitely better than crappy Google Maps I struggling to see how anything could be "definitely" better than "crappy" Google Maps. To me, GMaps has made navigation about as exciting as using a door knob. It works without fail, and is so incredibly mundane, that the thought of forming a strong opinion about it makes me drowsy.

In my experience - it's just frequently wrong, to a point where I don't feel confident using it. Telling you to turn where you can't, going wrong way up one-way streets, showing you that streets connect on the map where they actually don't.......I could keep going. I keep reporting errors and they never get fixed. Like I mentioned in another comment there's a road near my work which has a no-left-turn sign but Google…

FWIW I live in a newer house on a country road, told google where it was and what number it was, and it was there on the maps a few weeks later. This was in NZ.

With the incredibly large sample size of two I have to conclude it's region specific.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#423

Post by LAC-Tech »

SoftTalker wrote: post #411
gambiting wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a modern car with a built-in satnav as well as Android Auto support, and yet I still use my TomTom 5000 - it's just better. Definitely better than crappy Google Maps, definitely better than volvo's built-in maps, and it's without any kind of comparison how much better it is than Apple Maps. You get in the car, it auto-selects the destination based on the patterns it learnt(so if you get in at 7am on a workday,…

> if you get in at 7am on a workday, it automatically selects "work" as your destination. Then around 4pm, it will select "Home". OK, but you need GPS navigation and maps to get between "work" and "home"?

Presumably they have a dense network of roads in-between, where the optimal route can change daily.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#424

Post by snarfy »

jstummbillig wrote: post #323
gambiting wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a modern car with a built-in satnav as well as Android Auto support, and yet I still use my TomTom 5000 - it's just better. Definitely better than crappy Google Maps, definitely better than volvo's built-in maps, and it's without any kind of comparison how much better it is than Apple Maps. You get in the car, it auto-selects the destination based on the patterns it learnt(so if you get in at 7am on a workday,…

> It's just better. Definitely better than crappy Google Maps I struggling to see how anything could be "definitely" better than "crappy" Google Maps. To me, GMaps has made navigation about as exciting as using a door knob. It works without fail, and is so incredibly mundane, that the thought of forming a strong opinion about it makes me drowsy.

Purpose-built tools are always superior to multi-tools for the purpose they were built.

A phone running google maps is a multi-tool.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#425

Post by jupp0r »

llbeansandrice wrote: post #383
jupp0r wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Maps still can't accurately route people to my house in suburban California. They end up one block over.

Have you tired submitting an issue? No one could map to a place I used to live out in the sticks accurately but I submitted a bug/issue to Google Maps and Apple and they fixed it.

No I haven't. Will totally do that in order to save time explaining to friends why they can't use Apple Maps for navigation to my house. I just assumed that submitting maps bugs is the same /dev/null form as normal bugs for Apple software, but it seems it's a separate process and they are actually responsive. Thanks!

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#426

Post by LAC-Tech »

jclardy wrote: post #33
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-…

Apparently TomTom is still the generic word in the Netherlands.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#427

Post by knodi123 »

98codes wrote: post #390
jstummbillig wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just better. Definitely better than crappy Google Maps I struggling to see how anything could be "definitely" better than "crappy" Google Maps. To me, GMaps has made navigation about as exciting as using a door knob. It works without fail, and is so incredibly mundane, that the thought of forming a strong opinion about it makes me drowsy.

It (and all other GPS apps I've tried) work well enough, until you try to go somewhere you know well and have to turn it off to stop it from trying to reroute you over & over again. If any app would allow me to have some sort of ability to let me set a level of "pain" (traffic, stoplights, smaller roads, extra turns) that's acceptable vs. a level of time savings, I'd use that app and never look back. The number of ti…

Google maps actually tried to kill me once. I was driving down Hwy 59, to a remote farm I'd never been to before, and for some reason Google Maps thought that there was a break in the highway. Like someone with an eraser just swiped a 1-inch stripe across the highway that was impassable.

I trusted it because I didn't really know where I was going, and it had never let me down before. So I followed its instructions down a series of little farm roads to detour around the "break". Except one of the roads crossed under a raging stream, and was only passable during the dry season. I actually fishtailed a little to stop, because the road was slightly downhill and made of dirt. If I had followed the instructions, I would have died.

Anyway, I submitted a bug report about that highway break, and 5 months later Google wrote back and said my fix had been accepted! How thrilling.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#428

Post by caf »

ferongr wrote: post #373
rapind wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Google Maps is free. We need a new alternative word for "free" when it comes to advertising companies. Something short to say "the cost is too abstract and indirect to understand fully or describe, but does impact society at large". Maybe "free-ish"?

Google Maps is "free" in the same way healthcare is "free" in many countries. The usage of the word seems fine.

Closer to free-to-air TV.

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#429

Post by burmanm »

n0tth3dro1ds wrote: post #421
theiz wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you have read the article. TomTom is changing from navigation device maker, to map maker. They already did that, Apple Maps uses TomTom data for example. There is however a new market that will grow: autonomous driving vehicles. These need more data, and more or less real time if available.

> There is however a new market that will grow: autonomous driving vehicles This market is shrinking and will continue to shrink.

Shrinking before it has even began?

Re: TomTom’s new mapping platform and ecosystem

#430

Post by solarkraft »

lukeqsee wrote: post #82
petesergeant wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I doubt what I saw will really add to what Doctor_Fegg says in his talk. However, a few examples: https://daylightmap.org is built by Meta (Facebook) to allow their maps to meet their quality needs consistently while still pulling and encouraging OSM updates. This unlocks OSM data for a large amount of sensitive corporations. I personally have made quite a few edits on behalf of customers who pointed out errors in th…

> Some of these contributions may have intentional and unintentional edits that are incompatible with our use cases. Our mapping teams work to scrub these contributions for consistency and quality. In the course of this work, we also build additional tools and technologies on top of OSM to increase mapping speed, and more importantly, drive a higher level of detail, quality and accuracy on the map.

So it's like OSM "stable"?

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