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Joined: Aug 19, 2008 Posts: 69 Location: UK - South
Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2010 5:10 pm Post subject: Amusing email from TomTom
I received an amusing email from TT:
Dear Keith,
A wise man once said, "A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." To which we would add, "...and a decent map."
Made me laugh untilled I cried.
Cried out of frustration They just don’t understand do they: my map has 2440 mapshare corrections - just what is a decent map! _________________ TT520 running App 8.351 & map UK&I v845.26345
Using Traffic TMC (round pin) & PGPS speed cameras.
Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 14893 Location: Keynsham
Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2010 11:23 pm Post subject:
My maps UK&ROI v840.2562 has NO MapShare corrections - and never will! A decent map is one without MapShare corrections.
As I have six email addresses registered with TT, I received 6 Happy New Year emails and so far have received 4 of this one about travelling the world. They cease to be funny after the fourth. _________________ Dennis
Confuicias say ‘very god map not come from Tomtom;. _________________ Tomtom Go 720.
Navcore 9.510
Central and Western Europe v855.2884
GPS World Traffic cameras
Home 2.7
iPhone 3G
Joined: Jun 20, 2005 Posts: 1096 Location: Solihull, UK
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 12:37 pm Post subject:
DennisN wrote:
My maps UK&ROI v840.2562 has NO MapShare corrections - and never will! A decent map is one without MapShare corrections.
A decent map is one that is correct - it doesn't matter whether it includes Mapshare corrections or not. I'm quite happy to receive Mapshare corrections, particularly as the number of major cock-ups is now getting much fewer, and we are also now seeing corrections carried forward onto new maps.
Personally, I find your continued one-man campaign to dissuade anyone from using Mapshare is starting to get a little tiresome, particularly as it is based upon the initial implementation of it, and seems to take no account of recent improvements (mainly because you haven't tried them out!).
Quote:
As I have six email addresses registered with TT, I received 6 Happy New Year emails and so far have received 4 of this one about travelling the world. They cease to be funny after the fourth.
If you have registered 6 e-mail addresses with them, and not ticked the box requesting no mailshots, then you can't really complain about the number of e-mails you get sent. I've got 2 e-mail addresses registered with TomTom, and I can't remember the last time I received an e-mail from them. From what I've seen mentioned on this forum, I don't think I'm missing much - I haven't seen anyone mention an e-mail that I felt I really needed! _________________ Garmin DriveSmart 50 LMT-D
Being a noob to this forum i don;t understand the anti-mapshare arguement? surely it's a perfectly logical thing to do given the constnatly changing state of our roads, the number of people who use them vs. the number of mappers working for tomtom/teleatlas
Joined: Jun 20, 2005 Posts: 1096 Location: Solihull, UK
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 6:07 pm Post subject:
The problems have been that;
a) In the past changes haven't been verified before being made available to the public. On a couple of occasions, fairly major roads were indicated as being closed, and as such all routing avoided these roads. This hasn't happened for some time.
b) It has taken a long time for changes to get updated on the next version of the map, and they have to be resubmitted all over again. It seems to me that the automatic ones have now started to be filtered through to the latest maps. _________________ Garmin DriveSmart 50 LMT-D
Joined: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 19638 Location: Blackpool , Lancs
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 7:40 pm Post subject:
nightflight wrote:
Being a noob to this forum i don;t understand the anti-mapshare arguement? surely it's a perfectly logical thing to do given the constnatly changing state of our roads, the number of people who use them vs. the number of mappers working for tomtom/teleatlas
In theory the idea is great, in practice there have been too many examples of blocked roads, blindly following a sat nav to your destination in an area you don't know the roads is fine as it will still take you from A to B and get you to your destination. Due to MapShare changes all too often I find (in areas I know well) the device produces stupid routes Elgin to Lossiemouth which is about 6 miles, with MapShare I was offered a route via Kinloss and a total distance of 18 miles - YES some three times further than it should have been.
Locally in Blackpool I have seen the device route me through the houses rather than stick to the main roads as someone had tried to add a mini roundabout and got it wrong - they managed to block the main road resulting in stupid routing, OK the device still got me to the destination (My House) but I only followed the offered route to try and work out what had gone wrong on the device - Loads of other examples, great idea in principle but it isn't something I will enable these days as in my opinion it degrades the quality of the map.
Daggers wrote:
The problems have been that;
a) In the past changes haven't been verified before being made available to the public. On a couple of occasions, fairly major roads were indicated as being closed, and as such all routing avoided these roads. This hasn't happened for some time.
This is based upon your own experiance or a wider audiance? I still see blocked main roads through villages/ towns and even B roads in the middle of nowhere if I switch it on.
Daggers wrote:
b) It has taken a long time for changes to get updated on the next version of the map, and they have to be resubmitted all over again. It seems to me that the automatic ones have now started to be filtered through to the latest maps.
I find this worrying as undoubtedly errors will creep in leading to blocked roads on the nav unit that are perfectly legal to drive through. If I see errors starting to creep in to the main maps I will be looking elsewhere for my choice of navigation solution.
You will find many others on here with the same view, I have said it before that MapShare is/ was a great idea let down by poor implementation, so its certainly not just the lone view of a single forum user as made out above - Mike
Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 14893 Location: Keynsham
Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 1:38 am Post subject:
Daggers wrote:
Personally, I find your continued one-man campaign to dissuade anyone from using Mapshare is starting to get a little tiresome
What campaign to dissuade anyone? I think you might find it difficult to provide evidence of me trying to dissuade anyone. I make no secret (indeed, I publicise it in my signature) of the fact that I don't use MapShare and I'm very willing to tell anyone I think it's no good, but that's a long way from a campaign to dissuade people from using it.
There are two opinions here. Just because you think it's great is no justification for condemning my opinion that it's rubbish. Mike has already pointed out that I'm not alone and even if you think little of me, you have to respect the opinion of somebody of Mike's stature.
Maybe my recent experiences of some very weird map features such as 20mph limit on a local dual carriageway have supported my continuing lack of enthusiasm for MapShare - these features are recent permanent incorporations in the latest maps and if MapShare isn't to blame, I can't think what might be - I find it difficult to believe a professional mapper (or whatever a TeleAtlas van might be called) could get a dual carriageway speed limit that wrong! These experiences certainly corroborate Mike's comments, I think. There is also the suggestion that downloading MapShare corrections onto your map may cause read delays (poor screen refresh rates) as the device struggles to find its way through the ever-increasing accumulation of "corrections". I would not be surprised to hear that "new maps" are in reality "clean re-installs" rather than much new data. Isn't that what happens with Windows? - in time, the downloads of updates clog the PC so much that the delays are actually noticeable.
I use my TomToms for my professional driving of quite a lot of miles a year and I have formed the conclusion that MapShare corrections will not add value to my devices unless and until TomTom come up with credible verification before release and/or incorporation. _________________ Dennis
Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 19991 Location: West and Southwest London
Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 3:52 am Post subject:
DennisN wrote:
What campaign to dissuade anyone? I think you might find it difficult to provide evidence of me trying to dissuade anyone.
Well, to be fair, comments like:
Quote:
A decent map is one without MapShare corrections.
Quote:
as normal, I won't download a single one of yours - it's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I don't trust you.
Quote:
No way do I want to be associated with MapShare, thank you!
Quote:
Anyway, it's not C***, it's Mapshare. I take it you believed the sales hype? No need to feel embarrassed, lots of people still do believe it!
Quote:
And I'm opting NOT to download mapshare "corrections" because of the problems with them, which I understand some people think is not worth worrying about
etc. etc. (there's dozens more)
....along with your signature
Quote:
TT Mapshare NEVER.
could be interpreted just a tiny bit as trying to dissuade people!
Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 14893 Location: Keynsham
Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 11:19 am Post subject:
Daggers wrote:
In the past changes haven't been verified before being made available to the public. On a couple of occasions, fairly major roads were indicated as being closed, and as such all routing avoided these roads. This hasn't happened for some time.
I cannot see a single 'Don't use mapshare' in the quotes
You've quoted six instances and hypothesised "dozens more" but not one with a single "Don't use MapShare" phrase. When you spend long enough to find one, please bear in mind that to deserve the title of "continued one-man campaign" it needs several.
And just think of the several posts we've had asking (asking us, not asking TomTom!!!) how to make map corrections to speed limits - it's difficult and people are getting them and other corrections incorrect! From your experience as a Verifyer, you know full well that submissions are unreliable until checked - you will have your own "feeling" of how many are accurate and how many are not - do you think MapShare submissions are likely to be better than what we see for cameras? I honestly do NOT believe there are crowds of people out there submitting false cameras or false MapShare correction with malicious selfish intent (to slow traffic in their own village, or divert traffic away from it). But I do believe there are a lot who, with the best intentions in the world, get it horribly wrong. Here at PGPSW we sort those out with our verification process, but I have yet to see any evidence that TomTom do the same with MapShare submissions.
One thing you must agree is that TomTom's verification process is at best not transparent and at worst non existent - obviously somewhere in between those extremes, so users must use their skill and judgement to decide which side is more likely.
Skill and judgement based on such things as previous record of correct/incorrect corrections, carry-over of corrections into new map releases, nearest doctor, dentist, police station in Brussels, experiences in other areas of TT performance like Navcore wonders/faults (make up your own list), stories of TomTom Support performance. _________________ Dennis
Joined: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 548 Location: East Midlands
Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:00 pm Post subject:
After years of using Nav 6 with my Dell PDA and finding the maps increasingly inaccurate, on the excellent advice in this forum I've bought a 940. I've spent some time reading about how to get the best from it, have subscribed the PGPSW camera database and I'm ready to use it.
Given that accurate maps are probably the most important attribute of a navigation system, I'm both intrigued and baffled by the comments about Mapshare. It relies (like the PGPSW camera database) on input from users and is, as far as I can tell, verified by TomTom. Yet the maps, we are given to understand, are still full of errors.
If this is true, how about an addition to the TomTom FAQs alerting users to the risks of using Mapshare, perhaps with some examples of errors?
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