news 7.15 maps

[kichu1979]

Has anyonce noticed TomTom released new maps for Europe (v7.15 available both as WE&CE map and separate packages). I wonder why there is no official press release for this... perhaps we are to expect US map upgrade too.

I found press release on dutch "yournav" homepage. The info says the 7.15 maps are based on 2007.10 Teleatlas mapdata,
and they say at the moment release is only for Europe maps, US and others expected later this week.

 

[Pedro2NR]

Thanks for the info!

 

[kichu1979]

I wonder if that early update (considering 7.10) are just 3 months old, means TomTom has switched to more often map updates and we could expect new map every 3 months. Just as they say on "changes..." page.

If this is the way things gonna be I think they should come with some sort of one/two year subscription. Othewirse buying new map every 3 months might definately hurt your wallet.

Or - the other idea - if they keep things the way they are now most users will be updating their maps in longer intervals... every 6-12 months... but more users will buy the update... some do it 1q, some other at the later time during the year.

sorry for my crap english

 

[Nextourer]

Someone in the other thread suggested 9th Feb as the release date for 7.15

 

[greal]

Someone in the other thread suggested 9th Feb as the release date for 7.15

According to someone from TomTom's support (as quoted on the British forum), the new maps would only be "a minor upgrade", so minor that it's not really worth shelling out your hard-earned money, "especially if you have MapShare". Interesting comments and, well, unexpectedly honest...

 

[kichu1979]

It really depends of the country you are in. I have here complete detailed datasheet of coverage of TeleAtlas 2007.10 maps for Europe (the ones used in 7.15 release), which also have information on previous 2007.7 (TomTom 7.10) and indication for 2008.1 map release (probably in next TomTom map update).

And for some countries, those with the best coverage, the differences are only minimal, for example few percent increase in house number data, or few
hundres of kilometres of new roads, for some others the difference is huge, for example Slovakia in 7.10 had 30% street network coverage, in 7.15 it has
100% coverage. And that's make a difference.

No idea on US however as I got this document from a TA Europe representative. Didnt bother to ask for US as I dont travel
across antlantic.

 

[greal]

It really depends of the country you are in.

Oh, certainly. I'm in Vancouver, BC - and so far, I'm happy with 710, but I almost never do POIs - I simply navigate from a street address to another. So far, so good. Like someone said elsewhere, you wouldn't really buy a printed atlas each year, would you?

 

[Jimbowmac]

Howdy all..
Just to make sure...

My other Thread tells, "not before the 9th", Support didn't tell me date.

Just don't want to be marked as a provider of false news

 

[kichu1979]

Oh, certainly. I'm in Vancouver, BC - and so far, I'm happy with 710, but I almost never do POIs - I simply navigate from a street address to another. So far, so good. Like someone said elsewhere, you wouldn't really buy a printed atlas each year, would you?

Definately. I think all this mess is because TomTom switched from 1 map release per year to 4 updates per year... and while that give you option to buy and use the latest maps available most gps users will probably need 1 update per year, max two. Plus you cant expect many changes in maps that already have complete country covered in terms of street network and addresses. New releases will be bugfixes or small updates probably hardly visible during standard use.

On the other hand I think that now we are going to have 4 map release a year it would be nice to have some sort of yearly subscritpion option to buy apart from single maps.

The folks that gain most with new maps update plan from TomTom are those in the countries that TeleAtlas is catching up with coverage... Central and Eastern Europe, Balkan region etc. If you look at the numbers, every map release does make significant difference there.

That new frequency of map updates will be mostly welcome by professional
gps users (fleet managmenet, full time drivers spending half of their lives on the road etc. etc.).

Joe average user mostly won't notice much differences between quarterly released maps I think.

 

[greal]

On the other hand I think that now we are going to have 4 map release a year it would be nice to have some sort of yearly subscritpion option to buy apart from single maps.

Absolutely. This would be a sensible thing to do. So why aren't they doing this? My explanation (well, "guessplanation" would be a better term) is: all those (very) minor upgrades (e.g. 710 to 715) are nothing but cumulative MapShare corrections; those are free, hence the lack of a subscription option. Having four updates each year, though, and expecting your users to shell out dollars four times a year is completely unreasonable - and unrealistic. TomTom would benefit greatly if they changed their business strategy in this matter. I, for one, I'd be willing to pay a reasonable yearly subscription - say, $50/year i.e. ~$1/week - to make sure I'll always have the latest & the greatest map out there; in the long run, this would prove more financially profitable for TomTom (I mean, c'mon: if you don't have flagrant errors in your area, are you really eager to spend money four times a year and keep your fingers crossed ("gee, I hope the April map is gonna be better than the one I purchased in January")? Didn't think so...

 

[geocacher]

I wish we can preview the map before we buy it to make sure the changes we want are on the newer map.

 

[baggss]

Absolutely. This would be a sensible thing to do. So why aren't they doing this? My explanation (well, "guessplanation" would be a better term) is: all those (very) minor upgrades (e.g. 710 to 715) are nothing but cumulative MapShare corrections; those are free, hence the lack of a subscription option. Having four updates each year, though, and expecting your users to shell out dollars four times a year is completely unreasonable - and unrealistic. TomTom would benefit greatly if they changed their business strategy in this matter. I, for one, I'd be willing to pay a reasonable yearly subscription - say, $50/year i.e. ~$1/week - to make sure I'll always have the latest & the greatest map out there; in the long run, this would prove more financially profitable for TomTom (I mean, c'mon: if you don't have flagrant errors in your area, are you really eager to spend money four times a year and keep your fingers crossed ("gee, I hope the April map is gonna be better than the one I purchased in January")? Didn't think so...

I wholeheartedly agree with this.

 

[kichu1979]

My explanation (well, "guessplanation" would be a better term) is: all those (very) minor upgrades (e.g. 710 to 715) are nothing but cumulative MapShare corrections; those are free, hence the lack of a subscription option.

I think you it is not fair to generally call 7.10 to 7.15 maps a minor upgrade. It is a standard new map release that does not differ from previous ones. Wether you see improvement in your area really depends on the country you are interested in... for example for Slovakia users jump from 7.10 to 7.15 means jump from 23% to 100% road network coverage. And I would not call that a minor upgrade.... read more thoughts below

I mean, c'mon: if you don't have flagrant errors in your area, are you really eager to spend money four times a year and keep your fingers crossed ("gee, I hope the April map is gonna be better than the one I purchased in January")? Didn't think so...

I think we will see subscription option from TomTom sooner or later... and
not because of 'finger crossing attidute'. Think this way... the more detailed the mapdata is, the less users are thinking of upgrade. If the map is working for them, the usually dont even bother to think of upgrade.

And you can see this attidude more and more often... especially from folks living in areas that have nearly 100% street and house number coverage.

 

[baggss]

I think you it is not fair to generally call 7.10 to 7.15 maps a minor upgrade. It is a standard new map release that does not differ from previous ones. Wether you see improvement in your area really depends on the country you are interested in... for example for Slovakia users jump from 7.10 to 7.15 means jump from 23% to 100% road network coverage. And I would not call that a minor upgrade.... read more thoughts below

I think that's great for the Slovaks but I suspect that most of the members here are really concerned about the NA maps and the not so much the European ones. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. That assumption is based on the fact that this is the TomTom USA forums.

As it happens, the street my house is on is not on the TT map, nor is it on Google Maps. I'd like to see it, but I'm not willing to pay the $$$ for a new NA map just so my street shows up on it.

 

[andyjstewart]

Download Help

Home is telling me I can get a free WE download, but I can't download because there is not enough free space in my 920. I need to remove about 190MB, and I can't get there without removing some critical (I think) stuff, like the NA maps. I already removed the WE maps, but that didn't help at all, I guess Home already thought I would do that.
Anybody have any ideas? I have a 2 gig card installed, but that's not helping since it already has a bunch of MP3's on it.
I don't want to miss the window of opportunity to download, since once I have the map I can always move it to my PC's hard drive. Problem is, I can't dowload it.
Help?
thanks, Andy

 

[baggss]

You could try a 4Gb SDHC card. Seems folks with 720s and 920s have had success getting the SDSHC cards to work.

 

[dhn]

As it happens, the street my house is on is not on the TT map, nor is it on Google Maps. I'd like to see it, but I'm not willing to pay the $$$ for a new NA map just so my street shows up on it.

Then how do you find your way home?

Just askin'.........

 

[baggss]

Then how do you find your way home?

Just askin'.........

According to my TT, I'm not on a street when I get home. It looks like a street, it feels like a street.....

 

[cyberbot]

Absolutely. This would be a sensible thing to do. So why aren't they doing this? My explanation (well, "guessplanation" would be a better term) is: all those (very) minor upgrades (e.g. 710 to 715) are nothing but cumulative MapShare corrections; those are free, hence the lack of a subscription option. Having four updates each year, though, and expecting your users to shell out dollars four times a year is completely unreasonable - and unrealistic. TomTom would benefit greatly if they changed their business strategy in this matter. I, for one, I'd be willing to pay a reasonable yearly subscription - say, $50/year i.e. ~$1/week - to make sure I'll always have the latest & the greatest map out there; in the long run, this would prove more financially profitable for TomTom (I mean, c'mon: if you don't have flagrant errors in your area, are you really eager to spend money four times a year and keep your fingers crossed ("gee, I hope the April map is gonna be better than the one I purchased in January")? Didn't think so...

i have been directed today to download
but i dont know how big is this map ?
does anyone knows?
because my Tomtom720 has Hardisk wich is 2GB

 

[kichu1979]

Absolutely. This would be a sensible thing to do. So why aren't they doing this? My explanation (well, "guessplanation" would be a better term) is: all those (very) minor upgrades (e.g. 710 to 715) are nothing but cumulative MapShare corrections; those are free

Actually they are not. Actually it is impossible for new map (7.15) to have any MapShare corrections applied. Let me explain.

Even if TomTom escalated all MapShare changes made in 7.10 back to TeleAtlas and TeleAtlas corrected everything the latest map update we got (7.15) is to early to see those changes in real life. You must take into notice the timeframe between map release is done by TeleAtlas and map being pushed to users by TomTom.

I guess most folks dont understand how long it takes for a map release
to appear on our devices.

Consider the latest map. The 7.15 map published 5 Feb 2008 is actually based on TeleAtlas 2007.10 material, which means that the map is a snapshot of TeleAtlas data from September/October 2007. Now think
when MapShare really showed on market. The first devices showed up
around summertime, but considering initial problems, firmware updates
the realistic time before MapShare things was figured out is around October/November 2007 if not later.

So on 5th of Februrary 2008 we received the map that was published by TeleAtlas even before MapShare was really working on TomTom devices.

So considering just the dates it is almost impossible to have any MapShare updates being applied to the 7.15 map, unless TeleAtlas staff can travel in time

So considering the TT escalated all changes to TeleAtlas and they applied them I think the earliest release we - as TomTom users - might see those changes beeing applied to TA maps is their 2008.1 release (that will be published by TT in 3 months, or 2008.4 that should show up as TT map
in 6 months).

We got this map today, but this map is really 6 months old.