Re-assessing nav
06-11-2012, 04:05 PM
#31
Drifting
Really?! Wow, yours must be a special version...
Or, you don't understand what the word 'literally' means.
06-11-2012, 04:19 PM
#32
Drifting
Mark my words, in a year or two maximum, inbuilt SATNAV will be net- or cloud-based, using an app similar to that in smartphones, and the current PCM system will be thought of as laughably archaic as an 8-track player.
Honestly, how did we ever get about before SATNAV? Unless you're on a driving holiday or your job demands you drive to unfamiliar areas routinely, I think you truly ought ask yourself why on earth you'd need SATNAV?. If your inability to remember how to get round your home town results from some form of dementia, I daresay a bigger question is: ought you to be driving at all?
And for those few occasions when SATNAV is a true advantage and not just a pretentious toy, a $150 Garmin or an even less-costly smartphone app is at least as effective if not better than those inbuilt by the car manufacturers and sold at orders-of-magnitude profits.
Honestly, how did we ever get about before SATNAV? Unless you're on a driving holiday or your job demands you drive to unfamiliar areas routinely, I think you truly ought ask yourself why on earth you'd need SATNAV?. If your inability to remember how to get round your home town results from some form of dementia, I daresay a bigger question is: ought you to be driving at all?
And for those few occasions when SATNAV is a true advantage and not just a pretentious toy, a $150 Garmin or an even less-costly smartphone app is at least as effective if not better than those inbuilt by the car manufacturers and sold at orders-of-magnitude profits.
In my world here in the Puget Sound, the streets wind around due to the terrain/geography. But the layout for naming is on a somewhat numerical grid system. So about 90% of the roads are numbered names (eg 346th street), and because they stick to the grid layout where a road is a virtual line from north to south and all bits of pavement that overlap with that virtual line get that one road name... the result is as the roads bend left and right, they change names constantly without you ever turning off of the road: 345th Street NE becomes 54 ave becomes 346th street NE, etc. Then you have hellish combinations where within 300 yds of each other you have 512th St. NE, 512th Pl. NE, and 512 Way, and they are all different roads and not connected. There is no way you can know your way around this rats nest unless you drive professionally all day and have done so for years.
The point is, for some locations satnav makes a lot of sense, for others it doesn't.
As for cloud based navigation, I don't see that happening any time soon. The connectivity isn't there. When you out of cell service range, and that happens a LOT in the west of the US, then what?
06-11-2012, 04:33 PM
#33
Race Director
One thing to keep in mind as we all give our views is the entire world is NOT like your local city/town. I'm sure that in some parts of the country a nav unit seems like pointless overkill. When I lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I'd say the same. But I'd challenge you nay-sayers to come up here to the Seattle area and try using a paper map (the way we did it before sat nav). The issues faced here, you in the flat south cannot fathom.
In my world here in the Puget Sound, the streets wind around due to the terrain/geography. But the layout for naming is on a somewhat numerical grid system. So about 90% of the roads are numbered names (eg 346th street), and because they stick to the grid layout where a road is a virtual line from north to south and all bits of pavement that overlap with that virtual line get that one road name... the result is as the roads bend left and right, they change names constantly without you ever turning off of the road: 345th Street NE becomes 54 ave becomes 346th street NE, etc. Then you have hellish combinations where within 300 yds of each other you have 512th St. NE, 512th Pl. NE, and 512 Way, and they are all different roads and not connected. There is no way you can know your way around this rats nest unless you drive professionally all day and have done so for years.
The point is, for some locations satnav makes a lot of sense, for others it doesn't.
As for cloud based navigation, I don't see that happening any time soon. The connectivity isn't there. When you out of cell service range, and that happens a LOT in the west of the US, then what?
In my world here in the Puget Sound, the streets wind around due to the terrain/geography. But the layout for naming is on a somewhat numerical grid system. So about 90% of the roads are numbered names (eg 346th street), and because they stick to the grid layout where a road is a virtual line from north to south and all bits of pavement that overlap with that virtual line get that one road name... the result is as the roads bend left and right, they change names constantly without you ever turning off of the road: 345th Street NE becomes 54 ave becomes 346th street NE, etc. Then you have hellish combinations where within 300 yds of each other you have 512th St. NE, 512th Pl. NE, and 512 Way, and they are all different roads and not connected. There is no way you can know your way around this rats nest unless you drive professionally all day and have done so for years.
The point is, for some locations satnav makes a lot of sense, for others it doesn't.
As for cloud based navigation, I don't see that happening any time soon. The connectivity isn't there. When you out of cell service range, and that happens a LOT in the west of the US, then what?
I have a Garmin for when I need to rent a car or am out of country and it works well. But having another dash or window mounted unit with attendent cords and mounting hardware is a PITA and unsightly, and trying to manage my iPhone GPS while driving is dangerous along with the reception issues you mention. I have no complaints with the in dash nav units in my Porsches or the Audi.
