TomTom Western Europe app good for
Ive been using the application in France and it has really helped me get around, including staying off the toll roads. The biggest problem Ive encountered is that in areas with a lot of roads in close proximity (as happens a lot in Paris), the location marker jumps to a different road and the app then tries to reroute me back to the road it just thought I was on. It seems like a bit of hysteresis could help here.
Bought it for travel in Spain. Live in North America. Got to Spain, couldnt get it to recognize my location. Even out in a big park. Went through instructions on line big time. Finally, stumbled across turn on location services for iPhone. I dont see that in the instructions anywhere, but I could have missed it. But that is a huge issue, getting it to work. So turn on location services, and if you are an ATT customer, turn off data roaming, etc.
Ok, it then worked. Generally quite good. For instance, in Tarragona, it had us go what looked like 5 km out of our way to get to our hotel. But that was because of one way streets and islands in the median that would forbid left turns. So that part was a success.
I did not have the walking issues noted by others. I did have battery issues. I brought a plug in battery pack just to make it work more than 2 or 3 hours. That was fine. I looked over tomtoms web site to see if the car adapter thing (which solves battery issue) would work. Same problem as location services. Who knows? Can you just put it in a rental car and not permanently attach it with adhesives? I do not know, and didnt buy it.
Id say it was quite good, but not perfect. For instance, it wanted me to drive on to a new highway, but the highway was not yet open for business.
I figured this out after I got home, but it would be good, for battery life, to tell users how to turn it off!
Bottom line: it was worth the money. Could be MUCH Better with good instructions. Would I buy another tomtom app? Yes.
Its not perfect - the lack of compass support on iPhone 4 is annoying, and it was a bit clunky on my old iPhone 3, but TomTom Western Europe has been getting me around Western Europe for over a year now without any drama. I use the car kit because I dont see how to safely and conveniently use the device as a nav aid otherwise. The maps are relatively up to date and the software is reasonably reliable. Ive had a few crashes while route planning, but in over a year only had one lockup during driving, and that was during an all-day multi-country trip. A restart took around 10 seconds and the device picked up on the location immediately and was right back navigating the same route right away. Software updates are frequent and over the past year have fixed a few of the biggest annoyances. Only one voice (vaguely English accented female) attempts to pronounce street and city names, and it has gotten MUCH better over the past year with non-English names, and is laughably bad much less frequently. (Strange that its by a Dutch company and mangled trying to say "Den Hague" so badly until this last update!)
I felt compelled to post a review because of all the 1-star reviews. I dont think that any of the 1-star reviews were written by people familiar with GPS nav devices or their limitations. If you want to drive around all of Western Europe like a local and be able to go on road trips without any sort of maps or hassles, just buy the software and the car kit, smack it on your windscreen, and let it tell you where to go. If you are expecting it to do other things, well then maybe you might be disappointed but then again I dont know that any other GPS device would do any better. This is basically just a software version of TomTom, and lets you hit the road with one less digital device to worry about. Nothing more, nothing less. Any software which turns on the GPS chip in the iPhone will cause increased battery usage and the device to heat up. No GPS devices work reliably in city centers surrounded by high-rise buildings. GPS isnt in general accurate enough technology to use extensively for pedestrian-scale walking tours and the idea of walking around a new city staring at my phone instead of looking around is a bit of a head-scratcher to me (people would try this, really?) I did use it on foot this past weekend to find a restaurant in Luxembourg City center and it worked fine, so I dont understand the complaints. And if youve never tried to use a Garmin, you really cant appreciate how user-friendly Tom Toms software is! I recently bought my parents the latest-greatest Tom Tom standalone device, and I cant tell any major differences between it and my iPhone app except for the price.
I drove over 2000km in Europe in the past two weeks and this app got me to my destination perfectly every single time. It takes the stress out of navigation. I highly recommend it. I use it on an iPhone 4 and it works very well. Tunnels would sometimes obscure the GPS satellites but any GPS has to deal with that. Buy it if you dont want to deal with paper maps, directions, etc. Best app on my phone.
First off, I have to say that I have only been using this app with the optional TomTom Car Kit. That said, I am absolutely content with the performance and quality of this app. The maps are fairly new - a traffic circle that had been built a few months ago wasnt shown yet, but all the other roads and highways I have been using it on were all on it. Directions are accurate and it rerouted me whenever I missed a turn. The app gets a GPS signal after roughly 20 seconds or so, and it is very accurate once it has acquired a GPS fix. I have not used the HD traffic feature yet. I love the fact that I have my navigation system with me at all times - whether in my car or in a rental. Used in conjunction with the Car Kit this app is at least as good as any standalone navigation system - only more portable.
Very easy to use and powerful. I used this app with my bike several times this summer.
When planning any route, you can select "bicycle route" option, which will avoid high traffic roads, and give time estimates at bicycle speed. I found the route suggestions very good for biking, and time estimates a little too pessimistic. Though I ride probably faster than average, and its better to estimate longer time than shorter time.
However, there is one feature missing, that makes it unusable for biking: screen orientation lock. When mounted on the bike handlebar, the iPhone is flat, or say slightly titled toward me. Since its not perpendicular to the ground, the orientation is not clearly defined, and the iPhone will randomly switch screen orientations. 50 % of the time, the iPhone display will be rotated 90° and impossible to use while biking.
Some bad moments
Aside from the interface and battery life problems rightly highlighted by other happy users, GPS reception is so choppy (as pointed out by others, as well) that I am regularly given driving instructions for a position situated a few hundred yards away from my position, which can be slightly distracting when you are trying to figure out your way - and this does not happen in mountainous or dense urban areas, where interference and poor signal could be blamed. I have also been sent a few times towards one-way streets, and driven on concrete/real roads which, according to Tomtom do not exist, making me an instant explorer of sorts, in the Belgian countryside.
My current grudge with this nice piece of software is an update for iOS4 compatibility: the whole product apparently has a 1.8GB footprint, and WITH THE APPLICATION INSTALLED, I still have 2.6GB available on my iPhone 3G 16GB. However, bizarrely, when I try to download the upgrade, I am told that I do not have sufficient memory and am advised to delete videos and photos on my phone. If not fixed, I will be unable to travel with it for the holidays, which is the reason I bought it in the first place. TomTom declines to provide any help on this matter.
This product is an absolute waste of money. I recently abandoned repeated attempts to use this product during a driving trip throughout England and ended up using the FREE Google maps app that was preloaded on my phone.
This $89 apps is awful for pedestrian navigation in a city (and yes it has a pedestrian option). the map (2D, 3D or map browsing) requires forward movement to know the direction you are facing instead of referencing the built-in iphone 3GS/4 compass (unlike google maps). So, if you have intermittent GPS signal, you have no idea what direction you are headed. I bought this app so i have my map of spain pre-loaded as not to require roaming data charges of $19USD/MB (you read correctly MB not GB).
the map scrolling and zoom are also terrible. it is not smooth and requires the image to re-build each time you move or zoom. this does not make sense since all the map data is in resident memory (no Edge or 3G required). even google maps is smoother.
Im using this app with latest 1.4.1 update and the battery provided me about half day before completely drained (and this is in airplane mode) and the iPhone 4 feels like a portable heater. I even tried re-booting several times thinking it was a Software hang. you would think that this much energy draw would at least provide seamless compass + GPS navigation. If Tom Toms explanation is "this app is meant for car kit Nav", then why is it sold AND has a menu option for pedestrian Nav?
do not buy!
Not only it uses battery like crazy, it also crashes other apps GPS, even after we have turned TomTom off.
Had to do a restart, every time I used it, so I could use other apps that make use of the GPS.
79.00 thrown in the garbage would be a better use for the money.
I agree with others who have reviewed this and pointed out how bad the iPhone GPS receiver is :-(
I was using this software in France and Switzerland and the maps were very good - but completely useless without a GPS signal! I didnt realize how dependent the iPhone GPS position was on the cell phone tower location "assistance". I had no signal while driving in cities where I needed it the most!
Dont buy this unless you also plan on buying the $100 car kit!!!
I would recommend this more favorably if it worked with ANY Bluetooth GPS receiver and not just the TomTom Bluetooth GPS Car Kit.
:-( :-( :-(
crases and has a terrible interface. The GPS is far less accurate than google maps.