Navigate to a photo

I was using my iPhone the other day to navigate using the TomTom App when I noticed a new “destination” option, Photo!

I clicked the menu item and I was presented with a series of photographs.

Now initially I thought, well what was the point of that, if it was a photo I had taken I could (as I would be there) add the destination to the TomTom direct. That’s quite useful though as taking a photograph can be quicker than starting up the TomTom App, just have to remember not to delete it from the phone.

But looking through the photographs I realised that some of them were photographs from my photo albums and had not been taken with my iPhone, but obviously also had geo-data attached to the photo. I checked and found that the photographs were in fact taken with a Sony HDR video camera with GPS.

This made a big difference to the usefulness of this option, as somebody else could take a photograph with their GPS enabled camera, cameraphone or iPhone and send me the photo via e-mail. I could then save this and use TomTom to navigate to the GPS co-ordinates attached to the photograph. I tried this out and it worked.

I did try saving a photo from Flickr using FlickStackr, but the TomTom software didn’t pick it up, I suspect the geo-data was not included when I saved the image.

Free TomTom adapter for iPhone 4

Back in July I wrote a blog post about the problems of using the then new iPhone 4G with the existing TomTom iPhone Car Kit.

My main concern now though is compatibility with the iPhone 4. It does click in, but you wouldn’t want to do it too often. However even if you do click it in, there is no connection made with the Car Kit, so no charging and I guess no enhanced GPS.

You can , according to the internet tubes, add some padding that will allow it to work, but not tried that yet.

I would like TomTom to offer upgrades to an iPhone 4 model or even free upgrades would be nice.

Well if you head on over to the TomTom website you can claim a free adapter for your iPhone 4G to allow it to work properly with the Car Kit.

Excellent and well done TomTom.

TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone

I’ve had my TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone for some time now and have been quite pleased with it. The enhanced GPS signal does work really well and it manages to get a lock really quickly. The handsfree calling does work, but not if the road is noisy. I thought the kit came with a FM transmitter, it doesn’t, it comes with an audio out port. Quite useless for a car with no audio in!

My main concern now though is compatibility with the iPhone 4. It does click in, but you wouldn’t want to do it too often. However even if you do click it in, there is no connection made with the Car Kit, so no charging and I guess no enhanced GPS.

You can , according to the internet tubes, add some padding that will allow it to work, but not tried that yet.

I would like TomTom to offer upgrades to an iPhone 4 model or even free upgrades would be nice.

TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone

Oh I don’t know sometimes you wonder if companies realise that you might actually want to buy something… you know pay out money for goods!

Having got an iPhone 3GS and purchased the TomTom Application from the iTunes Store I was looking at ways in which I could mount the iPhone in the car.

The obvious choice appeared to be the TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone.

tomtomcarkit

The TomTom app on your iPhone 3GS or iPhone 3G puts award-winning technology at your fingertips, like IQ Routes which gives you the smartest, most efficient route any time of day. That’s just the beginning. Combine it with the TomTom Car Kit to experience enhanced GPS performance for the ultimate in-car navigation.

  • TomTom Car Kit features
  • Secure docking
  • Enhanced GPS performance
  • Clear voice instructions
  • Easy charging
  • Hands-free calling
  • Your music on the move

Now I know that I could buy a £15 generic phone holder from Tesco, however the extra features did seem to make the £99 seem like quite good value for money. Enhanced GPS performance is always welcome, I remember having lots of problems with GPS reception with an Acer PDA running Co-Pilot. Hands-free calling would be useful and the FM transmitter was something I had been considering buying for sometime. As it says

The Car Kit dock is compatible with all iPhone models…

This meant that I could use my main iPod in the car when I wasn’t using the iPhone, and listen to podcasts and music through the radio.

Seemed like a good idea, so where could I buy it from.

I initially checked the Apple Store and was disappointed to see that though it was going to be released on the 5th November, it was going to take 4-6 weeks for shipping, which in Apple speak means seven or eight weeks! So I checked Amazon and was pleased to see that they could ship within 24 hours of release.

Yay!

I placed my order on the 26th October

I waited.

Amazon sent me an e-mail on the 6th November, which said that they now couldn’t deliver on time and also couldn’t give me a revised shipping date.

On the 9th November I got another e-mail from Amazon, cancelling my order…

Hmmm.

Well that didn’t work out did it.

So with a little reluctance I went back to the Apple Store and though it was still saying 4-6 weeks shipping, I placed my order with them on the 13th November. The confirmation e-mail gave me a delivery date of the 28th December! Just over six weeks.

You can imagine my surprise (and a little delight) when on the 20th November, just one week later, I got an e-mail from Apple saying that my order had shipped.

So not 4-6 weeks, under two!

Once I have it, I will let you know how I get on.