Open letter to TomTom about address lookup (Navigator 3 GB)

Privateer · Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 2:36 pm Post subject:

Thanks Laura,

Power to the forum, eh? :D

Lets hope that the address look-up in 3.03 works, and that a new working Traffic is released very soon and then we’ll have a decent SatNav system. Thumbs Up

Regards,
_________________
Robert.
iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 14.0.1: iOS CamerAlert v2.0.7
TomTom GO Mobile iOS 2.3.1; TomTom (UK & ROI and Europe) iOS apps v1.29
Garmin Camper 770 LMT-D

tom9851 · Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 2:42 pm Post subject:

Excellent news indeed! Thumbs Up

_________________
___________

IPAQ2210/ROM-1.10/LEXAR 32X 256MB SD/Kingston ElitePro 1GB CF
TTN3-V3.03/Wired GPS-V3.03/Globalsat BT-338

LittleErn · Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 10:26 pm Post subject:

:| I received the following answer from Tom-Tom support today. Suggests 3.03 is indeed near! Pity it had no relevence to the question I asked which was NOT about "freezing issues"! Perhaps they've had so many complaints about freezing that they assume it is the only thing wrong.

"We are hopeing(sic) for a solution to come soon to cure problems with the freezing issues with 3.01 and 3.02. As soon as this information becomes available from our website then you must try these recommendations and see if your problems are resolved."

The "must" is annoying - but I assume it is the Dutch(?) technician's English rather than an attempt to dictate. Can't complain as the only word of Dutch I know is "

" - (it means Balls).

DavidW · Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 10:57 pm Post subject:

I wait to see whether the solution adopted in 3.03 is the one I proposed in this thread - sorting the streets by distance from the city. That won't be perfect - but it will be much better that what we have now.

I would still like to see a proper fix - which means a new database, but that might not even be possible with current TeleAtlas data.

If I was under any kind of Non Disclosure Agreement, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you - but as I'm not, I can. I've not heard anything further from TomTom myself - I haven't got a preview of the new version or anything like that, nor am I under any kind of NDA with any GPS companies at the time of writing.

If TomTom want to send me something to test (under NDA if necessary), I will co-operate with them.

I was still intending to contact TomTom's CEO, but I haven't yet got round to it, and I have an extremely busy three weeks coming up. I think the best thing to do is wait for 3.03 and see how it turns out. Be assured that as soon as I can, I will take this further if 3.03 doesn't improve things to the point where it's usable.

We must recognise that a program only fix isn't going to fix everything. Places missing from the database will still be missing, other data errors aren't going to be corrected - but if it allows us to find addresses more easily, it will be worthwhile. I still hope for proper address lookup in Navigator 4 even if we don't get a map reissue for Navigator 3.

David

woodchip · Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:09 pm Post subject:

I wrote to TT a week after the launch of TT3 upgrade voiceing in no uncertain terms my dissatisfaction at the performance of the address lookup. I had a similar reply, after the auto one, saying this was software related and they were working on it. I am not holding my breath !!! They have often blamed the mapping company for the out of date mapping but we, as customers, have purchased the software from TT and they are responsible to us surely , not the mapping company. I work in North Norfolk and have found numorous ommisions that were originaly included, wrong postcodes and roads that are 2 or more years old that are still not included and I have to revert to the old fashion way of looking at the hard copy map, which is fairly new but still has the data that I want, surely it is not beyond the mapping company's remit to check before they sell !!!

hegedusa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 27, 2004 Posts: 55

After several weeks of waiting for TT to answer my email, I wrote an angry one, using the word "F**K" in it. Two hours later (and this was a Saturday) I got a response from a helpful person at TT.

I told them about problems with certain places like Billericay and Chelmsford missing from the database, and he emailed me to say he's testing the next "patch" and that if I send him example addresses, he'll look for them. My Billericay address, so he told me, was actually there after all. He said that the towns ARE in the database (but obviously there's a bug which stops it working right). Apparently in the next release, street names will be shown in order of distance from the town selected, so that'll help find more relevant towns.

One example was searching for "High Road" in "Horndon on the Hill" (Junction with Orsett Road). When I tried this last week, I got the following results for High Road, SS17 8.

High Road SS17 8 (Chorley)
High Road SS17 8 (Vigo Village)
High Road SS17 8 (Winchester)

These three locations: Chorley, Vigo Village and Winchester are NOWHERE NEAR SS17 8. Winchester must be over 150 miles away!

When the TomTom guy tried it (with the new patch), he got:

High Road SS17 8 (Cottingham)
High Road SS17 8 (Whitstable)
High Road SS17 8 (Wilmington)

So not much better, as these three towns are also very far away. However, apparently (even though these towns are wrong), the entries themselves are listed in order of distance from SS17 8.

I seem to remember this was a bug in TT2 as well. Didn't bother me though. I just ignored it.

I received no comment about the issue of the wrong town names (although he is going to talk to one of the programmers, apparently), but he did at least acknowledge the problem with towns missing and with the list of roads being in a useless order.

As far as I am concerned, the best possible result would be that if you search for a road, in a town, the roads are listed with town names AND postcodes, and in order of distance from the town you searched for. What it looks like we'll get is just that, but minus the town names after the postcode (some of the time....).

Hope this helps - no timescale but he did indicate "soon".

Anthony

djohnson · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 12, 2004 Posts: 35

This is a very intersting point that Mark raises. If there is free third party software available which has correct address and post code information, it does beg the question, how can Tom Tom get it so badly wrong? In version 2 and 3.

BizBo · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 03, 2004 Posts: 10

Now maybe this is me 8O but can anyone find sutton coldfield in TT3 I seem to have missed it Embarassed

but if I haven't let me know.

thanks

BizBo

BizBo · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 03, 2004 Posts: 10

it finds four oaks (just down the road from sutton coldfield) but still no mention of the city ?

Fuego · Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 1:15 am Post subject:

Nope, can't find it. "B761" (or "birmingham") and then "sutton" gets you "sutton coldfield by-pass" and "sutton coldfield railway station", but that's about it.

BizBo · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 03, 2004 Posts: 10

Well it seems a rather LARGE ERROR 8O is present after all Sutton Coldfield is a large town that is not present!!

Now is this TT or the map? Evil or Very Mad

And should I address this in tech email to TT

BizBo

vxer · Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 11:05 am Post subject:

Guys:

All these places are ON the map but NOT in the lookup database. If you read this and other threads you will find hundreds of similar occurences. Until they sort it the workarounds invlove:

Postcode add ins
Marking the place on the map as destination (bit of a problem when you don't know where you are going
Doing it by street and post code combination.

Rubbish isn't it

One small saving grace: I was in a Rover (sorry) with Satnav yesterday. Althought the database was quite good, the map was terrible (always facing north!).

Malcolm

nej · Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 1:52 pm Post subject:

One other way that this problem manifests itself is in the use of the SDK. I use the SDK for linking software into TomTom, and one of the functions is to GeoCode an address - i.e. you enter an address and it gives you back the lat/long.
What it also does, is make guesses on the details you put in, making it pretty much unusable... for example, I put in the city as Sutton (in Surrey) and then the name of my road (Rosehill Avenue). The guess that it returns is a Sutton in Bedfordshire and a road called Rosebery Avenue.
If I enter the city as London then it gets it right.

What I don't understand is why it couldn't be a bit smarter. There are 8 Rosehill Avenue's in the country, and only my one is in a place that is called Sutton - the rest are nothing like it (Hemsworth, Rawmarsh, Whittington, Woking, Bold, Nelson, Burnley). Why it couldn't pick up on it therefore I don't know...

Anyway, first every post/moan over!

-Neil

BizBo · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 03, 2004 Posts: 10

Yes its seems these problems stem from the original error / bug that DavidW posted.

dunno · Regular Visitor Joined: Jun 15, 2004 Posts: 87

waits eagerly for new update ..... i've given up with tt looks ups Now that i have digitools postcode which i find works great

	PocketGPS
	Web