Today I drove down to Invercargill for lunch (as you do), so I took my iPhone with my newly-bought TomTom New Zealand app on it (confusingly the app is referred to as both v1.0, and app version 8.150).
It is definitely much, much nicer to use than my old Uniden, which is simply horrible for entering addresses into (so horrible that I nearly threw it out into the Clutha River when I last used it). I’m told that the interface is pretty similar to the real TomTom units, although after a short while my passengers insisted I change the default voice from NZ Paul to Irish Sean. Sean (who was referred to as Paddy…) gave us lovely clear instructions in a lilting Irish brogue, although he did get mixed up between “bear” and “turn”. A 90deg change in direction is not “bearing” anywhere, Paddy).
There was a navigational incident in Invers involving me entering the motel address incorrectly, and another when I mixed up “Tay” and “Dee”. But we got there in the end, albeit via some suburbs that we hadn’t intended on visiting.
The maps (well between Dunedin and Bluff, anyway) are pretty spot on, although some of the speed zones are wrong (Waihola, and the motorway by Carisbrook), and while it does mark fixed speed cameras, it won’t pop up an “alert” unless you’re on the same side of the road as the camera, which in some cases is just useless, especially coming into Dunedin from the south.
One oddity is the seemingly unfinished instructions when reaching wherever you’ve told it you’re going – it’ll say “in 400 metres,” … and then nothing else. In 400m, do what, Paddy? Do what? Only after getting out of the car, locking it and walking to the house did it tell me that I had reached my destination – perhaps that instruction would’ve been helpful some time ago when I was wondering what on earth would be happening to me when I’d driven 400m.
All in all, a good nerdy gadget day, although I noticed that my generic dash mounting kit with the power cable doesn’t actually charge my iPhone (it just powers it), and when unplugged it chewed through batteries – I think it had used up about 80% off a full charge after about 2.5 hours (although my iPhone is now 15 months old).
All in all, a four trim-hazelnut-latte rating (out of five).
☕☕☕☕
