Navigator V4 New Functionallity

[sdharris]

[DavidW]

There's only two major players in the digital mapping marketplace for street navigation systems - TeleAtlas (who TomTom use) and Navteq.

My understanding is that TeleAtlas don't issue lots of small updates, though they may issue the odd patch here and there to fix problems with important roads. TeleAtlas work by issuing major releases periodically - I believe quarterly. The licence cost to issue a map based on a newer TeleAtlas release is rather more than five euros - my understanding is that it's sufficiently high really to require a one-off payment or a subscription.

Further, my understanding is that the TomTom map format requires an entire map file to be issued to incorporate any change (though occasionally TomTom have patched errors in the maps at application startup). The cost of building, testing and distributing a 100-odd MByte map file (for Great Britain - some other maps are rather larger) is not zero.


Traffic is only available on subscription - though there's currently a special offer on annual Traffic subscriptions! I can't see TomTom providing support for anything that would compete with Traffic or exposing anything of the TMC innards of Traffic.

A roadworks only version of Traffic may be possible - but I doubt there'd be much cost saving over the existing Traffic subscription, which isn't that expensive.


POI warning - it seems certain that the replacement for Navigator 3 will use the NavCore software which has a built in POI warner. It's less clear whether there'll be support for the Navigator SDK (and hence the current crop of add on programs such as UK Postcode and CheckPOInt).


I'd certainly welcome VGA support - the reason is probably obvious from my signature! I'm sure I'm not alone in not having landscape support in my mount, though it may be nice to have the option of landscape for use in the Map screen and similar.

GPS 3.07 is a VGA application (though the satellite position display is wrong - the positions are all shown too close to the top right corner - that said, I'm not sure that display is right on QVGA devices), but Navigator 3.07 is not. Navigator 3.07 objects and shuts down if you switch to landscape mode.


My personal feeling is that altitude data is unlikely - especially in the maps, as it will increase the data size significantly without enhancing the core ability of the product to navigate. Navigator isn't a topographic product - nor have TomTom shown any signs of releasing a topographic product.



David

[Dave]

TeleAtlas used to do a quarterly update until a couple of years ago, then found most of their clients weren't utilising these by releasing them to the end user, so fell back to a six monthly release schedule (two a year).

Where as NAVTEQ do a quarterly release to their clients.

This all means that NAVTEQ customers like ALK, Mapopolis for instance have a much better chance at getting the latest most up to date maps out to their user base providing they can compile the maps into their own format and get to their physical release quick quickly. It's also more likely that TeleAtlas customers will probably be at least a quarter behind, maybe 6 months depending on when TeleAtlas customers release their versions.

Most GPS companies try to pick a release date that will guarantee them new maps just prior to issuing an upgrade to their customers (the end user). So I guess with NAVTEQ on a quarterly release schedule it puts less pressure on companies like ALK/Mapopolis to release the maps quickly as there will be another update to them within another 3 months, where as TeleAtlas customers probably need to get it right, or to be seen to be issuing older maps compared with NAVTEQ to the end users.

[sdharris]

[DavidW]

My understanding is that companies like TomTom have to pay TeleAtlas a fee for every map update they ship to an end user - and that fee is rather more than 5 Euros. Certainly that appears to be the likely corollary of TomTom's statement that they can't countenance Go users copying maps from users who had higher version numbers shipped with their device because this would incur a licence fee to TeleAtlas. I can't see, therefore, how your model is viable.

The mapping companies aren't likely to licence their data in such a way that ongoing updates are included for a one-off fee - unless that fee is extremely high! I would think a fair proportion of the income from licensing geodata is from people upgrading their existing products. People need to keep their products up to date, and no accountant / finance director is going to volunteer to give up that revenue stream. I suspect much of the cost of an upgrade with newer maps is the newer maps; so far TomTom's upgrade charges have been very reasonable.


I would guess that the cost of a map update is largely the licence fee to the geodata provider. There are some costs involved in formatting, testing and distributing the data (whether it's shipped on physical media or via the Internet), but they're likely to be rather less than the licence fee. All but the distribution costs can be amortised across the entire user base taking the update anyway.


All this can only be written from what I hear - obviously precise details of agreements between the geodata suppliers and their customers are commercially confidential.



The file format stuff - efficiency is important for proper operation of the system. As the mapping companies don't trickle updates to their customers anyway, choosing instead to make a fixed number of releases per year, there seems little point fixing something if it's not broken.

Again, we can only go on indirect evidence here. The TomTom map format is proprietary and closed - this is the industry norm.



GPS 3.07 is a VGA application. Navigator 3.07 is not - though it's the only version recommended for WM2003SE. I never ran 3.03 on my hx4700 - 3.07 was out by the time I got my machine.

My headphone port is fine - no hissing noise that I can pick up with either of the sets of headphones I have lying around (some fairly good Sony in-ear headphones and some mid-range Sony hi-fi headphones). Are you sure your headphones are well grounded?



David

[sdharris]

Interesting reading this discussions on map updates now that TomTom Plus is available, downloadable map updates...who would have thought it 5 months ago ;-)

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/tomtom-plus.php

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