(iPhone App Review) at&t Navigator: GPS navigation for monthly fee on at&t bill • (iPhone Hardware Review) Gomadic 3G Auto Windshield Holder with Car Charger (updated 11/09/09) I'm testing the at&t GPS Navigator app utilizing the Gomadic Auto Windshield Holder and a 8GB 3G iPhone. The iPhone 3G has GPS built-in. The original iPhone will not work. The 3GS iPhone will work best because of its faster processor. This app is free for the first month. At&t has allowed me to use this app, free for an extended amount of time for the purpose of this review. No deal was made that I should give a good review. I would like to say 'thank you' to the agent at at&t, Santiago Ramirez, for his insight into the process of testing a software device over a reasonable amount of time. at&t Navigator: GPS navigation for monthly fee on at&t bill At first I didn't like it. After a while I decided that the 'traffic summery' was the best reason to use this app. It is easy to use the buttons. I'm starting to like this app more and more. With the new improvements in the software updates this app is maturing nicely. PROS: Live traffic updates. • Onscreen live route delay warnings. • Live traffic summery screen. • Program from my contact list. • Create favorites lists. • Search intersection address. • Search by business type or name. • Search airports by code or city. • The app if free to download. • The 2D and 3D map view is clear and easy to understand. • It loads the maps over 3G in real time, which doesn't fill your phone will maps. • You can control iTunes audio with pause, play, forward, reverse, playlist, and volume from the screen. CONS: Because maps are used in real time, when the GPS signal is lost, GPS does not update and you might miss a turn. This also may be true when the cellular signal is lost. It could be one or the other, or both. I'm checking that with Telenav. • No traffic summery is available for alternate routes, so that you can judge if you are taking the best route. • $9.99 for monthly service would be a better value at $3.99. At $119.88 per year you should test it during the one month free trial to decide if it is worth it for your personal needs. Once the kinks are worked out it might be worth the monthly price. I'm not sure yet. • Sometimes it lists your position on a parallel side road or a cross road until it puts you back on track once you’ve passed it. • No GPS signal can be found, at times. When entering Vermont from the Massachusetts border, GPS asked me to come back later. I did. • Once I was a half a mile south of my destination and the GPS wanted me to proceed 15 miles south instead of a half a mile north to my destination. I had to use Google Maps instead. • If you manually enter a destination that is NOT in your address book it will NOT be listed in ‘Recent Places’ if you have to restart the app. BEFORE traveling to a destination you should first list that destination in you address book. If you don't, you will have to re-type in the address each and every time you restart the app. The fastest way around this software bug is to search the address of your destination in Google Maps and then store that address in your address book before you launch the at&t Navigator app. • Traffic Alert icon appears on screen but no traffic info is listed in the ‘Traffic Summery’ screen. • At times ‘Traffic Summery’ page only shows traffic info starting 5 to 15 miles ahead but not close enough to help. • Reroutes around traffic can double your distance, such as a 25 mile trip becoming a 50 miles trip. You should check the ‘Map Summary’ screen to see if the new route is screwy and use some self determination to know when to ignore at&t's app while it's running. • Tap the screen with one finger to zoom in, as expected. Tap the screen with two fingers, it zooms in when it should zoom out. at&t’s app doesn't play by Apple's rules. • Rotation from vertical to horizontal now works in the 'Drive To' mode. It doesn't work in the ‘Maps & Traffic’ mode. Sometimes you just want to know where you are, when you're in your own 'no particular place to go' mode. Rotation doesn't work in any mode other than 'Drive To' mode, which means that you have to unclip your dash or windshield mounted iPhone to program it in the vertical mode and then wait for the map to appear, once that happens you can return it to its mount in the horizontal to use the 'Drive To' mode. If you want to use any other mode you have to remove or rotate your mount to use it in the vertical position, if for instance, you are going to use the ‘Maps & Traffic’ mode. This could be dangerous if you try this while you're driving. One fix is to ignore the horizontal mode altogether, until horizontal mode works in all modes. • If you have mounted your iPhone in the horizontal position and you start the app, it starts in vertical position. You have to remove it from your mount, turn it into vertical position, wait for it to change to horizontal position and then remount it. The program need to sense its current position at startup. Whenever it is in the horizontal position in the ‘Maps & Traffic’ mode, the app should know it. • The voice directions, besides telling you all the pertinent information you need to know also tells you a LOT of information you DON'T need or want to know. After telling you to make a turn, and you make that turn, it tells you to continue onto that road. If you have made the turn you have no choice but to continue onto the road. You don't need to know to continue onto the road you're on at every exit you pass. You don't need to be told to continue on the road you're on after the toll booth if you have no option to make a turn. Two seconds later it give you the same information but adds the route number of that same road. There needs to be a user setting, to screen out all this unnecessary chatter, it's pointless and distracting. ••• Using a battery charger is a must for all but the shortest trip because having the screen on all the time can drain your battery. Turn off the app from the bottom button. Turning off the iPhone from the top button just turns off the screen and leaves the app running with audio alerts, while the app continues to run, and it WILL drain your battery. You MUST turn off the app using the bottom button to stop the app, just like you stop any other app on the iPhone. One thing you should know is that there are times when apps seem to misbehave because the iPhone is having a problem on it own that might be blamed on the app. It can happen. The iPhone is not perfect... yet. Can you dig it? I knew that you could. Come back often for updates to this column. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Gomadic 3G Auto Windshield Holder with Car Charger The quality is apparent the minute you take it out of the box. It is an excellent piece of engineering and very sturdy. It easily fits just about any thing you want to place in it, like an iPhone in or out of it's case. In more than a month it has stuck to my windshield and has worked flawlessly. (more soon)	(Mac OS Computer Software) (iPhone App) reQall (Memory & Remembering Aid) Memory aid with voice to text to email to text message, and more. This app is only part of story. Even before I test it, it sounds like a winner. More later. Thanks to..... Leo Laporte The Tech Guy                                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                     V                                       V                     V                     V
AT&T Navigator Gomadic Windshield Holder with Car Charger	OmniWeb
iPhones and iPods should be able to sync to two computers. If you try to sync more than one computer to your iPhone or iPod, each time you sync your device will be erased and overwritten. I have music on my PC and Podcasts on my Mac. I have to manually drag and drop music and Podcasts to keep my data from being overwritten. Doing it this way is both cumbersome and tedious. • Turning on the iPhone & iPod by pressing the button alone should be enough to turn on the device. Having to use the slider, which can take two or three attempt in a shaky environment like in a moving car, is overkill. The slider is so cool, it's uncool. • Song titles should scroll across the iPod screen if it doesn't fit. This should be a selectable option. When a song title contains more characters than the screen can display, the full title is truncated, such as when a title contains the Artist Name - CD Title - Song Title. With the iPhone the problem persists in the vertical mode, but seems to be relieved when you rotate the display and the Cover Flow screen provides more room for text. Apple should fix this. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• (The following text is part of a new column which will have its own space soon) APPLE SOFTWARE SUGGESTIONS MobileMe Membership should be free for Mac owners. When you buy a Mac, MobileMe should be part of the package, but if you use a PC you will have to pay the price for MobileMe membership. If you use a Mac most of the software you need comes with it. When you buy a PC you have to go looking for the software you'll need.