Newbie Qs for mac user

[ourhero]

Hi all,
First tentative post here. I always thought Tomtom were supposed to be the best in sat navs but I've spent a few hours browsing reviews and forums for them and I'm beginning to have second thought.

First of all, I'm a happy mac user with Virgin broadband. Does this mean that I should avoid the Tomtom brand? Can tomtoms not be recognised by Apple macs? If that's the case then which brand can?

Also, it seems that trying to update to the latest maps is a huge nightmare for most users. Is it really as bad as it sounds? Has Tomtom not addressed these - seemingly widespread and long standing - problems?

Are other sat nav brands worse than Tomtom? Or what?

Yours, totally bewildered,
John

 

[canderson]

Much depends upon which TomTom model you are considering. There are two totally different applications being used to work with them. The older models use TomTom Home, and the newer models use MyTomTom.

As for what works with what, we've had issues raised by both Windows and Mac users at one time or another about both applications.

The older platform U.S. units (3 digit models, e.g., the XXL540) look like an external drive to your Mac, and on the whole, it's much harder to get into trouble with that - and if you do, we can readily get you back out. The newer platform U.S. units (4 digit models) act as little mini-servers, and there have been reports of network issues in some installations.

 

[ourhero]

Thanks for the reply!

I should have said, I'm in Scotland (U.K) not America.

 

[canderson]

Thanks for the reply!

I should have said, I'm in Scotland (U.K) not America.

The Start20 and 25 and the XXL IQRoutes Europe would be some of the 'old platform' models there. Worth a look.

 

[dhn]

The Start 2X models (and the Go8X models) are Navcore 10.x units.

 

[canderson]

The Start 2X models (and the Go8X models) are Navcore 10.x units.

Oops. *$^%#$ computer has rebooted twice while typing this and was totally hosed last night. I'm going to have to take this box offline for a bit and sort out what's happening. I think there's a memory leak in an audio streaming application - I provide a feed to radioreference.com. Anyway, TMI.

GO8XX wasn't part of the original equation since I was thinking U.S. Do they even sell the 8XX in the UK? But yes, scrap the Start20/25 from the "old" platform list. Getting too hasty here trying to type without thinking before the next reboot.

To the OP,

the XXL IQRoutes Europe might make for a good solution. Beyond that, most users of the newer units don't seem to be stumbling over OSX (even Lion) now, and 64 bit Windows users have had their share of entertainment in certain installations as well. All of which is to say, most users are managing on either platform, but we do hear of problems on all of them from time to time.

 

[Andy_P]

From another UK user...
The admin staff of one of the UK-based TomTom forums all use Macs and are managing fine with the new models and software.

As said above, users of both platforms have been know to have "issues", but it's the nature of these forums that we tend to hear from them rather more than we do from people with no problems.