Guess where I am? I’m at ‘freakin’ Ikea, baby! This place has gotta’ be my fav store. But gettin’ here was a *****. Let me explain…

Got some bad news… the Tomtom GPS unit in my Lexus died. Yep… after about three years of faithful service, she died. I had warning she was going… she started not playin’ nice with the dock mount in the Lexus, trying to shut down every five seconds (losing power connection) and also was giving crazy audio static and feedback with music and also voice. But yesterday she finally died… woke herself out of sleep, rebooted… then never woke up again.

So, until I get another Tomtom Go 910 and copy over the hacked software I created to a new unit, I’ve got no GPS navigation. That means I’ll have to rely on the Neocell for all navigation. And keep on mind the Neocell is a 2G iPhone, which means no GPS… only general cell phone location positioning.

So far navigating with the Neocell hasn’t been as bad as it’s been before. Used it yesterday to navigate around (I had a co-pilot to tell me what directions the Neocell gave). Today I had to find Ikea by myself. The cell tower locationing has been pretty acturate for most areas, being within only about three blocks of my position. Nice.

What I do when I need to navigate is I search the location on Maps. Then I go to directions, and as I always want directions from my current location, I simply touch route. Then I touch start. Usually I’ll have to advance a few steps to get on the street I actually need. Once I’m at the area I wanna’ be at, I reset the trip meter on the dash so that, when directions tell me I need to go 0.8 miles or 7.6 miles, the dash keeps track of that or me so I know exactly when I need to look for my street or exit… and when I need to have my iPhone out.

If I happen to take a wrong turn or who knows what… It’s not too hard getting my way back. I simply just do a new search again for where I want to go starting from my new location.

There’s times when this can get messed up. Yesterday, I went in the wrong direction that I was meant to go on the highway. I rerouted my path, but Maps thought I was on a side street next to the highway, instead of on it. So it planned a completely different path for me, avoiding the highway all together. So I had to wing it.

It’s been workin’ well enough, but I can’t wait to get GPS navigation back. If you have a 3G iPhone, I recommend getting a GPS navigation app, like the Tomtom app (although it costs $99). Any one of you out there have to use Maps like I’m usin’?

Peace, J

I let someone borrow the Lexus for the night, which has GPS navigation… but I got a phone call that I had to come out to then to somewhere I’ve never been, and the location’s hard to find… and it’s at night. Normally I’d be like “Na, I won’t be able to find it without GPS…” but I decided to say yes and try to see if Google Maps and the Neocell’s non-GPS location could help me. Maybe using GPS turn-by-turn navigation isn’t needed.

Man was I wrong… I mean, the cell tower only location features (2G iPhones don’t have GPS) did ok for long distances… I can tell it would work perfectly fine for driving long distances from city to city or state to state. But for finding complex things in a city or town, it’s little more than you following Mapquest “paper” directions and seeing your location based on a mile or so.

That was my real experience using Google Maps as a GPS subsitute. I’ll take it over static, text and image only directions… but it’s so not the same as GPS navigation. But at least if I’m ever without GPS navigation, I can wing it with Google Maps, even if I may make a few wrong turns.

Peace, J

Ya know TomTom’s comin’? Yep… itp’s comin’ to the iPhone 3G S. It won’t be out for the iPhone 2G or 3G, only the 3G S. The reason why? Well the iPhone 3G S is much faster, it also has 16gb and 32gb hard drive options… more power and more space for a GPS application, but I know for a fact 2G and 3G iPhone’s can run GPS software because I used to have the TomTom program on my pocket pc. The reason they’re waiting is for the digital compass that’s in the iPhone 3G S.

But here’s the funny thing… freakin’ GPS devices themselves don’t have digital compasses. My custom-built TomTom installed in the center console of my Lexus doesn’t have a compass. It knows what direction it’s facing once you start moving. But when it first gets a GPS target lock, it has no clue what direction it’s facing until the car moves some. And that’s no problem.

So why is this a problem with iPhones?Why do they need a digital compass? Well they don’t, they can work without one. But there’s a few reasons why iPhones are coming with a compass. It all has to do with interactivity. Just like the accelorometer, the compass will be used for app developers to come up with exciting, creative uses, such as video games, to let you look around in a virtual world, ect. That’s why they added it in there, and not for GPS navigation apps. But that compass will help apps TomTom’s because I doubt the GPS in iPhones is as good as normal car GPS’s.

But this is one of the reasons I’ll be upgrading to an iPhone 3G S at some point. This system’s so good it rivals most GPS systems out there. It’s not better than my TomTom GPS system, so I won’t be using it when I drive my Lexus… But it’ll be amazing to have that because anytime I’m not in my own car, or I let someone borrow my car, I don’t gotta’ freak out about not havin’ a GPS system with me.

Right now things are a little better… I don’t have GPS built into my 2G iPhone, but I do have unlimited mobile Internet so if I’m out somewhere without my GPS, I can at least plan my route with Google Maps… and I can update my location and, although it’s not exact like GPS is, I can see how close I’m gettin’ to a turn or if I’ve past it. Or those times I’m walkin’ somewhere downtown, I can figure out where I am and plan a path back to the parking garage or whatever. And I can do the same thing if I’m riding with someone else in their car and they don’t have GPS.

But, having the iPhone 3G S and the TomTom app would make it so that I had a TomTom GPS built right into my iPhone. And, in fact, it’ll have more updated maps than other dedicated systems out there I’m sure, there’ll be many times people who have GPS systems built into their cars will want someone to use their TomTom GPS app instead. I bet they’ll also include traffic updates, something I don’t have on my GPS… until iPhones can start doing teathering through Bluetooth that is (and if T-mobile supports it).

Peace, J

Well, the info has been released on what most of the major things will be comin’ out for the new iPhone 3.0 OS (set to come out this summer). There were hopes that Apple would introduce “teathered” Internet, as I mentioned the post before.

Well the bad news, for people like me, is that’s not gonna’ happen. Yeah, sorta’ sucks that I won’t be able to use the NeoCell to share its Edge Internet with my TomTom GPS so that I can get traffic updates. I’d go with a traffic antenna for my GPS, but, just like the NeoCell, I’ve hacked it too, turnin’ my model of GPS into the latest model (savin’ hundreds), so a traffic antenna may not work. That’s why I’m pushin’ to get the NeoCell to feed the Lexus data rather than an antenna.

Peace, J