Route optimisation missing

[daveoftruro]

I've been using Copilot on my iPhone 3GS until now, and I thought that upgrading to Tom tom would give me something as good or better in every respect.

So I was disappointed to find that I can only enter one waypoint. Copilot not only allows you to enter many, it also has a route optimisation button which will sort the waypoints into order to give the quickest way of visiting them all - superb if you have a delivery round, as I occasionally do.

It looks like I'm going to have to keep Copilot running to use on my delivery rounds! I can't even use it at home to plot the route and then transfer it to Tom tom, since it will only accept one waypoint.

Pretty poor for a device which is so much more expensive! Comparing the computation required to plot a route across Europe, the extra software to allow multiple waypoints and optimise must be pretty trivial.

Are there any plans to catch up with Copilot?

 

[mikealder]

Some of the high end TomTom units support "Itinerary Planning" where the device will go via a number of different waypoints, even this won't optimise the route though. No TomTom has ever offered Route optimisation and I very much doubt it will be added anytime soon - Mike

 

[daveoftruro]

No TomTom has ever offered Route optimisation and I very much doubt it will be added anytime soon - Mike

I'm afraid this response sounds very much like the kind one would hear from a supplier who has a near monopoly of the market and can dictate to its customers what features it will allow them to have.

It's good to have low-cost Copilot competing, and from Tom tom's price reductions in recent months, competing very well. Perhaps in future, Tom Tom will have to ensure its cheaper competitors don't have better features than it does, especially in such an important sector as Delivery Drivers!

 

[mikealder]

Dave, For the record I do not work for TomTom, the answer I gave to your original post is my own view and certainly not one from TomTom, at the end of the day if route optomisation is important to you its quite simple don't buy a TomTom product - Mike

 

[xenolalia]

Other than this concern, what are your views on how Co-Pilot and TomTom compare on an iPhone or iPad?

 

[daveoftruro]

Route optimisation and general

Sorry Mike. From the way you were talking I thought you did work for Tom tom and were expressing their views. My apologies for that mistake. My reply was not aimed at you, but at Tom tom. I do feel that if Copilot can do it, Tom tom ought to be able to.

Generally, Copilot always had a mickey mouse feel about it, and it was mainly because I was not happy with the routing algorithm that I decided to switch back to using a Tom tom. I got the impression that Copilot allowed zero time to transverse a junction, whereas I guess Tom tom has different values for different types of junction (left turn, right turn, roundabout, etc), so Copilot tends to traverse more junctions in order to save a few yards - a false saving.

A big plus in Tom tom is the ability to search the internet within Tom tom for the name of, say, a local pub or restaurant (or any other business), and then select it and the route is plotted without any further interaction. Copilot did not have that, and one had to use the normal iPhone search functions, then copy the address into Copilot. A bit messy. With my old Tom tom ONE, of course, you couldn't even access the internet (imagine that!) so I'd usually have to resort to looking up the address on Google maps, then put a spot on the same point on Tom tom's map - even messier. It is very, very slick now and highly recommended.

Obtaining addresses from the iPhone Contacts is again easily done - much better than with Copilot.

When I purchased Copilot last December, Tom tom was at a ridiculous price (from memory over ?100), and I do feel Copilot has done users a valuable function by forcing Tom tom to reduce the price. The UK only version still has a big price difference (?20 Copilot, ?50 Tom tom) but the Western European version is much closer (?40 Copilot, ?54 Tom tom).

If the route optimisation is not too important to you, I'd recommend Tom tom, but if you are a delivery driver, being able to enter several waypoints and pushing a button to order them in the optimum way is a very valuable tool, so I would say go for Copilot.