[ale] Living without a data plan how feasible is it

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Thu, 2014-10-23 at 10:37 -0400, JD wrote:
> No need for a data connection for GPS/mapping in the USA.

> Maps – 100% offline - just avoid anything from Google.

>     NAVFree USA (POI lists are limited)
>     NAVFree World (POI lists are limited)
>     OsmAnd – worldwide OSM maps
>     Maps With Me – nags for paid version too much
>     GPS Essentials – Tracking to match photos with GPS locations later.

> City Guides
>     TripAdvisor – these are nice, if it exists for your city. Get the app FOR
> YOUR CITY, not the generic app. Surrounding areas don't usually get included in
> the data, but for the core city stuff, 500 hotels, 500 restaurants, 500 tourist
> things should be there. The Atlanta TA App is highly limited, ITP only.

> Travel Apps - most do not need live data connections:
>   http://blog.jdpfu.com/2013/04/07/no-data-required-android-travel-apps

Just about anywhere in the world...

On Android...

TomTom App...

* Good:
---- Free lifetime updates.
---- Cost of phone plus cost of app less than a TomTom device.
---- IQ routing (it learns your habits and preferred routes).

* Bad:
---- Does not support high end devices (> 1280x1024 resolution) or
amyloid displays (Forget Samsung Tab S Pro or Tab 10.5 or similar).
---- Separate entire apps for Europe, North America, Australia, New
Zealand, etc, etc!  Really?  You can't just have one app with multiple
maps!?!?!?
---- Extremely harsh on power drain / battery life.  WITH USB power
supplied the entire fime, barely made it back from NOLA LinuxPlumbers
conference back to Atlanta before power in the tablet died!
---- IQ routing (it learns your habits a bit too well at times... :-P )

* Extremly Bad!
---- Does NOT support external SD card storage for maps!

MapFactor GPS Navigator...

- OSM Maps of the World for free.
- TomTom Maps of regions of the world for a fee (updates in question -
not all TomTom maps included - why no NZ?).

Sygic Navigation and Maps...

- TomTom Maps of the World for a fee - Free lifetime updates 4/year.

My experience with all three:

Sygic has a better navigation interface and better route planning
(IMNSHO) than either TomTom itself or MapFactor but no OSM (Open Street
Map) maps.  Buying the complete TomTom set of world maps was (~$50 USD)
less than the cost of the TomTom NA (North America - US, Canada, and
Mexico) app, let alone adding the TomTom Europe app to the mix.  Sygic
offers multiple route options during planning with pluses and minuses on
time / distance.  It also has a "drive to" and "walk to" options which
might be nice when it's not in a car.  Interface can be a bit quirky but
they all are really.  The editor for "favorites" is abysmal.  You have
to go into planning a route and then get into favorites to get to the
editor that allows you to remove favorites or make changes.  They
really, seriously, need a decent editor there but they have announced
some new revisions coming out soon.  We'll see...

You can use MapFactor GPS Navigator for free and download OSM maps for
any part of the world covered by OpenStreetMap but you get no street
level house numbers for searches (not in the OSM databases) and the UI
and route planning is not nearly as good as Sygic.  You can buy TomTom
maps for MapFactor but that's just the maps.  That will give you street
level numbering but I doubt it will improve their routing and certainly
won't improve their interface (which is OK, but not as good as the other
two).

Both MapFactor and Sygic exhibit significantly more hysteresis in
routing (route going to is different than route coming back) than TomTom
itself and a few routes are, errr, inexplicable.  Both lack a day/night
setting (can be a bit bright at night).  Both lack preferences for
fastest vs shortest.

ALL THREE lack a "trail of bread crumbs" (back)tracking that I loved
with the Delorme Street Atlas program on WindBlows and on the Delorme
GPS devices.

My newer tablets have both MapFactor and Sygic on them (TomTom doesn't
support either of them) while my Note II phone has them plus TomTom.
Maps take a LOT of storage.  Got fat SD cards in all three devices.

For driving NAV, my preference on my 8.4" tablet is Sygic, hands down.
Planning and laying out on my 10.5", my first choice is Sygic with
MapFactor OSM maps for playing what-if games and route comparisons.  If
I'm walking about town like in NOLA at LinuxPlumbers, TomTom on the
phone does real nice but I wouldn't pay the extra price to buy the maps
twice.  I already had TomTom for a while when I found they would not
support newer tablets so I bought the same maps again for Sygic.
Sigh...  But I got the whole world this time!

I've had the two TomTom apps (NA and Europe) for a couple of years now
and started using MapFactor last year when I had to upgrade my tablet
when my Nexus 7 died.  I started using Sygic more recently (just before
our Mediterranean trip this last summer) but it's rapidly become my
favorite.

Regards,
Mike

> On 10/23/2014 09:28 AM, Todor Fassl wrote:
> > I'll have to google LTE but  IIRC, a friend of my was poking around on my phone,
> > trying to enable that, and couldn't do it. I mentioned that I'm blind so a
> > friend took my phone while we were out to lunch and started checking to see if
> > he could enable anything that might help me make better use of it. He spent a
> > considerable amount of time trying to fix something with the data connection. He
> > finally gave up. I didn't really pay any attention though because the only time
> > I use my data plan is when I'm lost. The map app queries Apple's map data to
> > figure out where I am.
> > 
> > The original topic is living w/o a data plan. I get lost too often not to have
> > live map data but that seems to use kilobypes, not gigabytes. Howerver, if you 
> > don't have a data plan, you can still use the GPS on your iPhone with Navigon
> > from Garment. It's $40 and comes with downloadable map data. I used it for years
> > on an iPod Touch with a bluetooth GPS receiver.  There were plenty of instances
> > when I was the only person in a group who could get directions because we
> > happened to be somewhere where nobody could get a data connection.
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> 

-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 978-7061 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
   /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/          | (678) 463-0932 |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
   NIC whois: MHW9          | An optimist believes we live in the best of all
 PGP Key: 0x674627FF        | possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 465 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20141023/d41c9271/attachment.sig>