tomtom to get rid of google local search

[volant99]

fyi: just found this post:
Dutch navigation device manufacturer TomTom has announced it will drop Google as its main provider of local search to launch its own search engine called TomTom Places, to provide information on hotels and local businesses from its navigation units.

The move will see it phase out local Google services but will not drop Google?s search entirely. It will see TomTom Places become the default local search provider for the company?s new range of navigation devices.

TomTom Places will be available in Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Portugal, followed by a progressive roll out to other countries across Europe and the U.S which will be completed by the end of the year.

TomTom replaces Google with launch of local search engine for devices

 

[Andy_P]

Oh dear....

This can only be happening as another cost-cutting exercise.
Google Search was one of the best things on my LIVE units. To replace it with what can ONLY be an inferior service is dreadful.

I expect it will end up like the built-in POIs and the TT speed camera data... i.e. next to useless!

 

[volant99]

yeah, my thoughts exactly. POIs are horrendous on the tomtom compared to magellan and garmin. no addresses, no sub-categories. here we go again...

 

[mvl]

The POI on the Tomtom's used to be pretty good, but ever since Tomtom removed the onboard addresses in map 870, they're pretty much useless to me now.

I use Google almost exclusively for POI search now. In all the press releases I've seen, it appears that Tomtom Places will be a default, but Google will still be optional, on existing devices.

It wasn't so clear whether new devices would still support Google, so be very careful in future purchases to make sure "Google POI" is still on the box if it matters to you.

The USA is not part of the initial Tomtom Places rollout, so we get to see how it works before having to deal with it firsthand.

 

[volant99]

mvl,
i recently returned my 2535 live and got the 740 live specifically because of the features that tomtom took away. so far, i've been happier withthe 740 live because was able to load the poi addresses from earlier poi data.

the first thing i did to the 740 was to download the map 835 poi.data and crpoi.dat file and replace the map 860 poi.dat files while keeping the map 860 on my 740 live (map 860 also does not have addresses for the poi). and this seems to work very well, as the 835 poi database is more comprehensive and the crpoi.dat file provides all the addresses. so far i'm happy with it (i still think the lack of subcategories makes tomtom poi less elegant than garmin/magellan both of who do provide poi subcategories).

so at this point i have the 740 live with app 8.371 (got rid of the 9.058 after i read your posts), map 860 and poi data 835.

the only reason i'm using map 860 is because the map 870 won't fit on the 2 gb 740 unit. however, i just got an 8 gb micro sdhc card and will download the map 870 to that and continue with the app 8.371 and map 835 poi data.

mvl, given that you have experience with both the 740 live and the 2535 live, what is the advantage of having the 2535 live over the 740 live? i understand it has a better processor, but the 740 live seems just as quick (in terms of signal acquisition) in fact, the 740 live has a snappier and much more responsive UI--the 2535 has a very long lag when pressing buttons. there is no lag in the 740. route calculations/re-routing on the 740 may seem slightly longer, but not significantly (at least not for local routes).

so what is the advantage of the 2535 live???

 

[WPotter1950]

Oh dear - says it all. I see little future for TT if it keeps making decisions like this one. The Google search is one of the few positive features of the TT1000L.

 

[canderson]

so what is the advantage of the 2535 live???

There are many reasons why a number of us are clinging to our 740 Live units.

OK .. lemme think .. um .. the 5" screen?

FWIW, I can fit 870 on the internal of my 740. I'm wondering what all else you've got there that's preventing that. That said, another one of those good 740 features you're going to enjoy - a functional uSD slot. NOTE: I hope the 8GB card you bought isn't a Class 2. There are a lot of those around, and they really aren't fast enough for this task. A Class 4 will work, and a Class 6 still shows an improvement in performance. Beyond that, it's not necessary.

 

[mvl]

I find the GO 2535 LIVE better for vacations for 2 reasons:
- It tells you when your destination is on the right/left
- You can say "Drive to the nearest Burger King"
Both are very helpful when you've never been to a particular location before


I find the GO 740 (with the faster app 8.312) much better at home:
- It has itinerary planning
- It has a remote
- The interface is faster
- It has sensor-based autovolume/autobrightness
- You can manually reload the old POI with addresses
These are all the convenience features that make it a better device for daily use.

 

[volant99]

so far, i've been liking the 740 live much better than the 2535 live for all the reasons you've all mentioned above (minus the 4.3 inch screen...)

i'm using a class 6 sd card (8 gb)

the reason i couldn't fit map 870 on the unit is because i am using the poi files from the 835 map: 2 files, both of which are huge and much larger than the poi.dat file from map 870.

1. poi.dat file (193,788 KB)
2. crpoi.dat file (147,239 KB)

as you probably know, the crpoi.dat file provides the address and phone info for the poi's. the crpoi.dat file was a feature taken away in all maps after 860, and thus the poi no longer displays address info. this was one of my biggest pet peeves. so i just replaced the map 870 poi.dat files with both the poi.dat and crpoi.dat from map 835 (this was dhn's idea). it now works great.

i must admit, i do find the lack of announcement of the side of the street of the destination annoying, but i found a "work-around" from gpsreview:

http://forums.gpsreview.net/viewtopic.php?t=5991

 

[volant99]

when i boot up off the sd card, the satellite acquisition seems incredibly slow (using class 6 micro sdhc card, 8gb)...it takes 2 to 3 minutes from a cold start (i park in underground garage, and when i get outside, it take several minutes, whereas before, it was almost instantaneous).

can anyone suggest any solutions or why this is happening?

 

[dhn]

And when was the last time you got a gpsquickfix file?

 

[volant99]

updated it last night before i used it this morning. i actually bought a second 740 live and both are booting up off class 6 sdhc cards. both had very slow acquisition after i started booting up off the sd card. however, when i remove the sd card, the satellite acquisition is very fast. (i kept a redundant copy of all tomtom bootup files on the internal memory miinus the large poi/crpoi files from map 835)

how do i erase the sd card and only put the map on the sd card, such that all the other boot files are on the main unit?

 

[canderson]

when i boot up off the sd card, the satellite acquisition seems incredibly slow (using class 6 micro sdhc card, 8gb)...it takes 2 to 3 minutes from a cold start (i park in underground garage, and when i get outside, it take several minutes, whereas before, it was almost instantaneous).

can anyone suggest any solutions or why this is happening?

When you say you are 'booting up off the sd card', do you mean that you have moved your system files there as well to force your 740 to boot from the SD? That's a configuration that is used under only the most peculiar of circumstances (typically to make multiple versions of the Navcore firmware available). I'd have my maps all out on the SD and all else still resident in internal memory.

Then again, I have no idea why this would pose an issue for satellite acquisition UNLESS ...

If you do have a duplicate system on your SD card, the contents of the ephem folder may be corrupt, while the content of the ephem folder in internal memory may be OK.

Please clarify just what you've got loaded where.

If you DO have a full system on SD, delete all of the contents (not the folder itself) of the ephem folders on both internal and SD, and any folders that appear in the folder on your PC in \My Documents\TomTom\HOME\Downloads\complete\ephemeris

That will clear all ephemeris data from your unit and PC. Connect using Home and get fresh copies of all of that.

 

[canderson]

how do i erase the sd card and only put the map on the sd card, such that all the other boot files are on the main unit?

Just delete everything on the SD card except for the folders called "maps" and "North_America_2GB".

Edit: Sorry that some of this and the above were redundant - I hadn't noticed that there was a Page 2 for this thread.

 

[volant99]

thanks canderson,
yes i copied the entire contents of the internal, including system files, to the sd card.

regarding the ephem files, you were right. i also noticed that the ephem files copied were different. last night, i noticed that tomtom home only copies the quickfix data files to the internal and not to the memory card when you update (but interestingly, tomtom home does copy all other updates to the memory card if chosen). and when i checked the ephem files on the internal, they were up to date, but were the old ephem files on the sd card (unchanged from when i originally copied the internal contents onto the sd).

so this morning, i copied the ephem files from the internal to the sd card. it seemed faster, but i will be testing more. the only reason i copied all system files to the sd card is that i read in a different post that the internal memory gets worn out over time.

however, if it slows down the signal acquisition, then i will only keep the maps on the sd card and system files on the internal. what would you suggest?

another question i have is how do you prevent tomtom home from forcing you to update to the most current 9.058? i've noticed that mvl is able to keep 8.312 without being forced into updating to 9.058.

 

[Andy_P]

however, if it slows down the signal acquisition, then i will only keep the maps on the sd card and system files on the internal. what would you suggest?

That's what I do. It's easier all round.

another question i have is how do you prevent tomtom home from forcing you to update to the most current 9.058? i've noticed that mvl is able to keep 8.312 without being forced into updating to 9.058.

There's a previous topic about it, but here's the summary...

Install a previous version of Home - anything prior to 2.8.1.2218 will do. I am running 2.8.0.2146, the version just prior to the "nasty" one.

After running the *.exe to install the version of Home, do NOT run it.

Navigate to: C:\Program Files\TomTom HOME 2\xul

Using Notepad, Wordpad or another text editor, edit the file in xul called application.ini as follows:

In the line which reads 'Version=2.X.X.XXXX' (matching the version you have just installed, modify the number to read '2.8.1.2218'. When your prior version of Home runs, the version 2.8.1.2218 will be compared to the most recently available version, and no update to Home will be required or recommended.

This will continue to work until the next version of Home is released somewhere down the road. At that time, if we still find that the new version of Home being released is problematic, we can share the version number that is reported for the update, and we can modify the application.ini file again with the new version number.

Or you can just modify the number to read 10.000 !

Direct download link for 2.8.0.2146 (the version just prior to the "nasty" one) is:
http://download.tomtom.com/sweet/applicati..._0_2146_win.exe


FOR MAC users:

In your Home folder, find:

Library/Application Support/TomTom Home/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default

xxxxx will be random alphanumeric characters unique to your computer

Open prefs.js with TextEdit

Change all occurrences of the version number to 10.0 - upto three in total

Link to previous Home version for Mac:

http://download.tomtom.com/sweet/applicati..._0_1019_mac.zip

(Use "Stuffit" or "The Unarchiver" to extract the file s from the zip, not the Mac's own unzip routines).
[/quote]

 

[volant99]

thanks for your response andyp

when you said "that's what you do", do you mean you keep the system files on the internal and the map on the sd card, or do you put everything on the sd card?

 

[canderson]

thanks for your response andyp

when you said "that's what you do", do you mean you keep the system files on the internal and the map on the sd card, or do you put everything on the sd card?

Yup. That's pretty much SOP for all of the moderators with SD card capability, and a large number of our visitors as well. I shouldn't worry about your internal memory going bad. You should be keeping a copy of your unit on hard drive before and after any major updates (firmware and maps) anyway, so at worst, you might some day have to copy that to SD if your internal ever croaks, but it's not that common of an event. The family's oldest TomTom is still operating off internal memory after five years.

 

[volant99]

now when i install the older my tomtom, should i uninstall the current version or should i just install the older version on top of the current without uninstalling?

also canderson, have you been happy with app 9.058?

 

[canderson]

now when i install the older my tomtom, should i uninstall the current version or should i just install the older version on top of the current without uninstalling?

I need to be sure what you're asking there. MyTomTom shouldn't have anything to do with a 740. Please clarify. Are you asking about TomTom Home? If so, yes. Fully uninstall the old one first.

also canderson, have you been happy with app 9.058?

I held onto 9.056 for quite some time, and still have a copy of it that I could load if need be, but for whatever reason, 9.058 doesn't cause any Live services issues here in the Denver area, so I'm at the 9.058 level for the time being.