Tom Tom for iPhone...
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 1:10PM 
Well the highly anticipated Tom Tom "turn by turn" GPS iPhone application has been released on the world. Unfortunately, they didn't release the matching cradle at the same time but more about that later.
I was intending to hold off on buying the application until the "official" cradle was available, but following a Twitter conversation with Rob Hanson (@switchmac) it dawned on me that I had a Ped3-Auto stand for the iPhone, sent to me a while ago for review.
So with that in mind, I plonked down £59.99 ukp of my children's inheritance and bought the UK version of the app from the App Store.
A 241MB download later and my iPhone 3G S was now a fully functioning Sat Nav!
Now there are already turn by turn applications available from the App store (and much cheaper than £60 -
Co-pilot has been mentioned favourably - £25.9) but I was already familiar with the Tom Tom UI with my wife having a standalone unit, and I really wanted a proven solution (plus the cradle)
So is it worth more than double than Co-Pilot?
I can't really say as I've never used Co-Pilot!
Tom Tom for iPhone is however, a very good implementation of the traditional Tom Tom application. At last I can now pinch the screen to zoom in and out, I've lost count of the number of times I've tried to do that on the standalone Tom Tom.
Boot time is very quick and route calculation extremely speedy. It supports horizontal and vertical orientation, flipping the map round as you might imagine. I found that the short charger lead I had caused some tension on the Ped3-Auto causing me to keep the unit in vertical mode, a longer lead would allow me to use the horizontal mode.
GPS Signal acquisition seems to be much faster than the standalone unit.
As far as using the device, all seems OK. There was sometimes a slight lag in positioning as I turned a corner but the Tom Tom soon caught up, there was no problem approaching turns with instructions being given in good time.
The Route Type (Fastest, Shortest, Walking, Bicycle, etc) seem to be hidden away under advanced planning for some reason.
As usual the Tom Tom comes with a database of POI (Points of Interest) but this does not appear to be editable, and neither does the application appear to be able to be sync'd with the Tom Tom HOME desktop application. You can of course add favourite destinations and I presume this information gets backed up during your iPhone backup whilst synching.
The iPhone application also integrates with the Contacts list on your iPhone allowing you to select an address within your list to route to, and it also allows you to call a POI via the phone.
In operation, you can use your iPhone iPod app to play music and the Tom Tom will work in conjunction, pausing the music each time it gives verbal instructions. I understand that the phone will interrupt the Tom Tom if an incoming call comes in, which does give rise to the potential of you missing a turn if on the phone, but then again, you shouldn't really be on the phone if driving, should you :-)
Overall, I've been pretty impressed with the application, even if the price does seem a bit steep. It will be interesting to see if this price point stimulates other applications to charge more.
The fact that I carry the iPhone with me at all times means I now have a still camera, a video camera, an audio recorder, an iPod, an atlas, a clock, a timer, a phone, a games console, a computer and now a sat nav with me at all times (plus many more functions) all in a single device.
Truly astounding!
The area I'd like to see improved is the integration with the Car. The new Tom Tom cradle will go some way towards this with a built in charger, enhanced GPS performance, an amplified speaker for louder instructions and hands free calling. It's possible that the cradle will also interface with your car audio system via bluetooth? It's even been suggested that the cradle will also support iPod touches and 1st gen iPhones with no GPS due to the enhanced GPS built into the cradle.
No idea on the pricing for this yet, but I don't think it will be cheap.
What we really want is connectivity built into the car itself.
A little iPhone slot that you plug your iPhone into and allows you to interface with all of your cars systems. Not too much to ask is it?
The chances are that if the Tom Tom cradle does integrate in someway with the latest car audio systems, I'll probably have a look at upgrading the audio system in my car.
I may just wait until iPhone connectivity comes as standard with all cars before looking to upgrade that.
Reader Comments (14)
Is the Tom Tom really worth the $99? I have used maps app for my directions.
How does this compare to Navigon and i-Go?
I did pretty much the same but in my case I opted for the Western Europe Version since I'm more than likely to travel out to visit our neighbours...
I have used both the Co-pilot and TomTom on Windows Mobile in the past but I really do feel the latter trumps all Navigation systems out there on the market.
I'm aiming to get the cradle asap.
I did a drive of 2.5 miles at 50mph and at the end the iPhone 3GS on battery only got quite warm (not the sun it was raining). I also have a 1st gen iTouch but TomTom app would not load after putting it on iPhone, may be will allow only 1 unit at a time and yes I know this iTouch has no GPS. Should load if usable with cradle.
Don- You mention you can 'now pinch the screen to zoom in and out' Well if I try this when using Tom Tom it just reverts to the menu page.
This only seems to work when you have a locked on GPS signal and the map displayed?
Does TomTom use the built in compass? None of the options I have tried (Navigon, CoPilot and Sygic) use the compass, hence it lags when you turn a corner. It seems to me the unit would be more responsive if it used the compass, although I suppose in a vertically mounted position it would not work, you'd have to tilt it a bit.
So far I havent found any GPS app on the iphone that didn't lag compared with the proper TomTom
Pretty sure it doesn't use the compass as I think it works with the 3G too.
I perceive one small problem here - my car has some type of windscreen coating which prevents reception of the GPS signal & I have had to install an external antenna (ext. to the GPS, not the car as it sits behind the mirror on a clear bit of screen) AFAICS there is nowhere I can plug this into my iPhone unless they are very clever & incorporate it into the cradle. Or am I missing something?
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