Ok so I figured I’d start out this morning with a quick commentary on the NEW GPS I just got for Christmas. Yeah I know it’s isn’t Christmas just yet. But, since we are going on a pretty LONG trip. The present was needed before we leave for our trip.
Picked up good priced TomTom 335XL-T, works well there are some differences and some negatives between it and my older Garmin Nuvi 350, that it replaces. Actually wife will be using the Garmin now in her truck, with a Map Update.
On to what my thoughts were on the NEW GPS, so I’m not doing a REVIEW of the GPS it’s been done so many times you can see them on Google.
I enjoyed all of the hacking and modification that I could do to my TomTom put in my car and changed the TomTom to use C3PO as a voice, for some fun during the trip. The Traffic updates and intelligent routing will be nice in BAD traffic. However it didn’t seem to pick up the NASTY MALL Christmas traffic it routed me into on SUNDAY. While sitting in the traffic, several thoughts came to mind about why certain things have been included with GPS’s and others haven’t.
Traffic Data is a great addition and being able to move folks around accidents and off of over crowded routes is a very good improvement. More improvement in this area is a MUST.
What about Weather related events? Why hasn’t this made it into GPS units? I mean seriously, where I live weather can be a big thing. Tornado Watches and Warnings. How many times have folks been in car’s and NOT HAD a clue they were trying to outrun a tornado? Saw it several times this last year on our TV here. In the winter, Snow, Ice and Blizzard warnings would be good as well. This SHOULD be a FREE feature as well, as XML feeds for this information is FREE from the NWS nationwide and getting them using GEOTAGGING is very easy now as well. All of the info is very easy to incorporate. Just surprised GPS companies aren’t making this a built in feature. The GPS can give you LAT and LONG info which can be indexed via the NWS to pick up current weather, forecasted weather and warnings. All could be cached by GPS providers and rolled out to the units. Small data updates obviously could be trasmitted much like the traffic is now. This could warn drivers of bad conditions they are travelling into. Even assisting them to plan a route around bad weather as well.
After seeing how much I can change on my TomTom, another thought occurred to me. Why hasn’t someone created an OPENSOURCE version of one of these units much like that of the DDWRT project? User’s could update our own maps using the latest info from GoogleMaps or the OpenMaps projects out there. TomTom offers a community mapping feature on their unit. I’m not using it just yet, looked rather complicated.
In the Garmin Unit I had, it had a built in MP3 Player, a Photoslide show other interesting features. So adding features to GPS’s would be a growth of industry. Did they miss out on doing this as the Mobile phones and tablets are now starting to control some of that market? I guess I still see this as an area that could be developed further and could be grown more. Granted the amount of DATA you can move to and from these units are much more limited than our mobile devices. However some critical items should and could be developed for them still.
One last feature that I’ve LONG thought should be added to the GPS. Would be something I’d call Advanced Intelligent Routing. So how many times has your GPS told you to go some specific direction thru an area you KNOW always has bad traffic, or ton’s of traffic lights. You know a quicker route to get to that part of the trip? Saving TIME and GAS!! Having the GPS utilize this historical data is kindda like having the history in your browser on the computer reviewed and then you be targeted by computer AD’s with that. Yeah I know invasive into privacy. However if it could be done and encrypted. It would make our GPS units smarter, better and faster. Also, giving permission to sending the GPS units data to traffic planners with NO specific private info included would help communities plan better traffic flow patterns as well.
Well just some thoughts about GPS this morning that have been rambling around upstairs. Your thoughts, comments, if any are appreciated as always.