Windows Phone Thoughts: Navigate the US with Navman's SmartST V2

Area Avoidance
How often have you been driving along and seen warning signs of a problem that you really don't want to get stuck in? If you don't know the area too well, GPS isn't going to be a great help because you won't know how to change your route.

Until now.

SmartST V2 now allows you to mark areas of the map as places to avoid. The software then automatically recalculates the route to navigate around the marked areas. This is a really useful feature and it works really well. To use it, you have to move the view into the plain map mode and then tap-and-hold on the display to get the menu up. You can then choose the "Add Avoid Area" option.


Figure 5: Adding an area to avoid.

Figure 5 shows the map with a calculated route (shown in red) and the results of having just picked the "Add Avoid Area" option. You can drag on any of the eight handles to resize the block and you can drag the block itself to a different location on the map. Once you are happy with what the block is covering, tapping inside the block tells the software you've finished and it recalculates the route. Figure 6 shows the avoided area as a hatched grey square and the route has been recalculated off the screen.


Figure 6: The avoided area.

The software is really flexible here - you can tap on an area and delete that single area or you can clear all of the avoid areas.

Customer Loyalty?
I'm not sure what the industry trend is towards GPS customers, but I think that companies need to start thinking about how to keep their current customers happy. One of the big differentiators between buying GPS software and almost any other software, is that the GPS software has content that needs to be updated regularly otherwise it becomes out of date and ultimately useless.

What I don't see at the moment, and I know this particularly about Navman because I am one of their customers and I've tried, is:

• a feedback mechanism that allows customers to report errors and problems in the mapping information so that the product can be improved and
• an upgrade process that entices customers to continue to spend money on upgrades.

Now I know that Navman uses a third party company to provide it with the mapping information. I realise that this means that any errors in the mapping information are beyond Navman's control. However, I would have thought that if I take the time and trouble to report those errors to Navman, it would be in their best interest to pass that information on and therefore improve the quality of the mapping product. My experience with Navman UK has not reflected that thinking.

With the release of the GPS4400 and 4410 systems, Navman are selling a Bluetooth-connected receiver that conforms to the standard GPS protocols. You can use any software product that understands those protocols to talk to the Navman receiver. With that in mind, you would think and perhaps hope, that if Navman releases an updated product, they would want to engender customer loyalty by making the update available at a reasonable price. After all, if the price is too high, I can quite easily go out and buy a brand new competitive product, can't I?

Let's look at some prices. In the UK, Navman are selling the GPS 4410 receiver with SmartST version 2 software and European maps for £299. They are also selling the receiver on its own for £199.

How much do you think they would charge to upgrade from SmartST version 1 to version 2? Looking at the above prices, I would say around the £100 mark. If you could prove to Navman that you are an existing customer (e.g. by quoting your software serial number), they could encourage customer loyalty by offering the software for less than that.

So how much are they selling it for? Well, actually, in the UK, Navman's website doesn't offer an upgrade. Expansys, one of the UK's popular mobile-related online stores, has an upgrade product available on pre-order for £179.85 and without any indication as to when it might be available.

Interestingly, the US Navman website does have upgrades available for both US and European maps. The US version is available for $189 and the European version is available for ... $329.95! Yes, nearly double the price. To be somewhat fair to Navman, though, that price (which is about equivalent to £179) seems to be about par for European GPS software. Maybe this is a reflection of a lack of competition in the market, combined with the high cost of actually generating the mapping databases in the first place.

What Hasn't Improved?
In my original article, there were a couple of key problems that I had identified in really trying to use the software and these have not been resolved in this release:

• Occasionally poor verbal directions despite accurate mapping;
• No verbal warning when the GPS receiver loses contact with the satellites.

Both of these problems essentially mean that if you are driving on your own, the product is probably going to be about 80% reliable. To get that extra 20% and have a foolproof journey, you are likely to want to have a passenger with you who can hold the Pocket PC and keep an eye on the map itself and giving you additional instructions or warnings over and above what SmartST does for you.

Conclusions
I'm pleased to say that we didn't get particularly lost on either journey in the US. The one problem we did hit was the issue of poor verbal directions. The net result was that I sometimes missed the turn that the software was trying to get me to take and it had to recalculate the route a few times until I finally understood what I was being told and moved in the right direction.

SmartST version 2 is an improvement over version 1. The 3D view and area avoidance features are very useful enhancements. I do have concerns though about the accuracy of the verbal instructions and the ability of the receiver to lose its GPS signal without any verbal feedback.

That said, this is a good update to buy ... if you can get it.