Comments on: Google Free GPS vs. Garmin

By: seven

seven — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:49:40 +0000

or if you travelling abroad, data roaming charges will cost like one whole trip alone.

tomtom for iphone worked for me pretty well so far. and standalone garmin device. they both have offline maps.

By: Yann

Yann — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:36:08 +0000

Just went on a little road trip Upstate NY last weekend, used my T-Mobile G2 with Google map turn by turn and it worked flawlessly… No doubt in the middle of the Ocean or desert, a real GPS is necessary, but for North America, it works awesome… if you’re not on ATT I’m guessing ;)

By: Davor

Davor — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 20:39:16 +0000

@Daemon
http://www.nivas.hr/blog/2009/11/03/google-free-gps-vs-garmin/#comment-675549

And here we are, 1 year later with new Google Maps for mobile featuring vector graphics and offline maps.

By: Sofa Slipcover ·

Sofa Slipcover · — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 14:46:48 +0000

i use Garmin GPS whenever i go out, Garmin GPS is very reliable ‘~*

By: Male Reproductive System :

Male Reproductive System : — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 10:40:51 +0000

Garmin GPS are the best, i accidentally dropped one on the pool and it is still functioning after a minor cleanup”,-

By: Nivas.hr blog » Blog Archive » Google Free GPS vs. Garmin – few months later

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:08:41 +0000

[...] – If you haven't already, read about that incident. [...]

By: seven

seven — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:35:59 +0000

I second Google Telecom idea!

If you guys take a look at Chromium OS and Google Apps in general, nothing works without Internet connection. Personally – I am not big fan of storing my data on a cloud for which I am not 100% sure I will be able to access when I will need.

Don’t get me wrong – if I would be online ALL THE TIME, EVERYWHERE in the world (I could possible find my self), I would use this, and never look back at local data storage (be it documents or world maps), and I ofcourse – I would be biggest preacher of Googlism. :)

But we are still far from there yet (I think we are at the same distance to that as we are from free electric energy) and therefore we have right to judge this idea.

By: Daemon

Daemon — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:59:29 +0000

Donate it to me, it will be more effective =)

So, you see Google becoming Telecom. Well, that is not impossible, I would like that as well.

By: SchizoDuckie

SchizoDuckie — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:51:01 +0000

I repeat myself: i don’t see the problem. I’ll donate my monthly salary to charity if they’ll let themselves be held back by this.

By: Daemon

Daemon — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:47:54 +0000

Because GPS just gives you the coordinates and is not the issue here. Maps are the issue.

You need map so you can visually see where that coordinates are and use that to orientate yourself in space. Traditional GPS devices (Garmin, Tom Tom) have those maps as preloaded vectors that you buy.

Google, in order to display your position on a map requires your device to download maps in realtime from the internet (i do not acknowledge map preloading as an option). Thus, if you do not have rather fast mobile internet connection – you are screwed.

Yes, you will always know your X Y coordinate, but a number 45,5456456 16,2134234 is pretty meaningless unless you can see it on a map.

By: SchizoDuckie

SchizoDuckie — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:56:43 +0000

@Daemon: Why is that a problem if a full-fledged GPS receiver can fit in a coin these days? How many new phones have no GPS these days?

The ‘Google GPS’ is just a fallback and ofcourse only nessecary if there is no real GPS. I don’t see the problem.

By: Daemon

Daemon — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:52:42 +0000

Duckie, the issue here is not Google, it is the infrastructure that Google relies on in order for Google GPS to function. I just do not see telecoms making a decision to enable high speed internet infrastructure anywhere outside cities and main highway routes. It costs really a lot of money to get all that hardware in the middle of some forest just so you could go 3G there.

Therefore, Google’s evolution here is not stopped by them – it is stopped by infrastructure provided by others.

By: SchizoDuckie

SchizoDuckie — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:37:23 +0000

I think you’re not seeing the big picture and are a bit stuck in there

Googles stuff evolves, *FAST*
That’s why the stocks have plumited, ’cause stocks are also about the future.

If google releases something right now, it will mean you will have incremental updates every couple of months, for free, instead of every X years if you can cough up the money. Also, this stuff is hooked up to the world in a way that scares the current producers like Tomtom and Garmin and makes the minds of nerds around the world buzz.

The fact that you have thought of these (potential) problems here, probably means that someone at google did too, and they are already working on it. In a a couple of releases, you can probably just plan and download the whole route you’re going to drive, i can imagine even different kinds of packages depending on what you’re data plan is ( unlimited access will also download streetview material of the upcoming turns or so if available, roaming you will just download the map and terrain data)

By: seven

seven — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:40:24 +0000

PNG maps are zillion times faster to show on the client side than to render vector ones. Try zooming and moving the map of any larger city on Garmin using max details…. slooow. But detailed. :) Doing the same on computer is a bit faster, but not as fast as moving bitmap images around.

On other hand.. what REALLY pisses me off is the level of details all those map services have for our region. I can zoom-in on my friends house in Netherlands and see him taking a dump. In high-res.

By: Daemon

Daemon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:14:33 +0000

There are a lot of things I “also” didn’t hear about. No need to get smug about it.

The wiki idea is great, and I respetc all the people that contribute onto any wiki, but wiki is hardly accurate on a lot of topics, and I have proven that wiki can be manipulated ( I have inserted one friend to be Anti-pope ). As a mental test imagine you sit on a plane and pilot says: on this flight we will be flying using open source wiki based naviation. The plane would empty faster than if it was fire-drill.

By: Davor

Davor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:47:33 +0000

Hmm, hmm, and what smelly problem is that ? :)

Guess you also did not hear about OpenStreetMap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap

By: Daemon

Daemon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:36:36 +0000

Yea, and give VECTOR representation of the entire world, with details of each street for free. Hmm hm hm, I smell a problem there =)

By: Davor

Davor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:15:02 +0000

I agree the there would be “two hundred Gjizillion bytes of data”, which makes the whole thing unusable for trips from Croatia to Sweden.

The only problem that I see with Google Maps are PNG images that are used to store and display routes in Google Maps.

They could change this, and use some kind of vector technology (eg SVG) that overlays real satellite images that are downloaded from the cloud. When you are offline, only routes are displayed.

By: seven

seven — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:07:58 +0000

Yeah, statement about downloading google maps locally is close to downloading whole internet on your computer. :)

By: Daemon

Daemon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:22:08 +0000

Hm hm hm, that sounds plausible. So I plan a trip to Sweden, from Croatia, and then that software downloads all zoom levels on the road from here to Sweden.

Isn’t that like two hundred Gjizillion bytes of data?

And what happens when I want to take a different route (as it happened to me because ferry boat from one side of Denmark was not operational, so I had to detour to the other side of Denmark)?

I mean, boys, do not get me wrong, internet based GPS is cool, and imma let him finish, but real satellite GPS has the best solution so far.