Sat nav on iphone/itouch

[tvfriend]

Anyone got this?

I want to get satnav (we are the only people seemingly in the world without it)

Is the Tomtom kit and app for the i touch any good? or is it better to get a proper sat nav?

Any views welcome! Thanks

An iPhone has a built in GPS receiver while an iPod Touch doesn't. So you can kind of use an iPhone as a GPS immediately, although you might want to install an app that makes it easier to use for that purpose.

An iPod Touch will need to be plugged into something that gives it access to a GPS (TomTom do do this, www.tomtom.com/en_gb/products/mobile-navigation/tomtom-car-kit-for-iPod-touch) before it will do this.

So depending on what you have you'll want something different.

iPhone some software.

iPod Touch something physical to plug it into.

whats the little purple icon for then? i had it on my iphone and itouch

i use a running app which maps my run......works well on iphone,but seems to work on itouch too

I've used TomTom on my iphone. It's ok, a little slow but to be honest I'd rather use a proper one. Given the price of it and the fact on a touch there's no GPS so you'd need the accessory kit, I'd suggest you just buy a proper unit and be done with it.

Thanks

I thought even for the phone you had to have the tomtom kit and the app? I use google maps on the phone but need more of a 'proper' sat nav for when I'm driving on my own.

I will do some internet investigations!

"whats the little purple icon for then? i had it on my iphone and itouch"

Not sure... Where is the icon? Is it on the "homepage" or within an app?

"i use a running app which maps my run......works well on iphone,but seems to work on itouch too"

iPod Touches can locate themselves using wireless networking. So if it's connected to an wireless access point it can ask a service on the internet where that access point is located and then it knows roughly where it is. But it has to be connected to the internet and the service has to know where that wireless access point is.

So in theory a running app could remember all the wireless access point that the iPod passes along the way and then when it gets back on the internet as the service where those wireless access points were located.

But that's not the same as GPS which allows a gadget at any point in time to know exactly where it is.

And if someone moves a wireless access point (e.g. someone moves house) then gadgets can get very confused as the service will still report that the access point is where it was before the move.

"I thought even for the phone you had to have the tomtom kit and the app?"

To be more accurate the very first iPhone didn't have a GPS receiver, that was introduced with the iPhone 3G (the model before the 3GS). So every iPhone since then can just download the TomTom app for £50 from the App Store and away you go.

However that won't stop TomTom trying to flog you a car kit for £99 (www.tomtom.com/en_gb/products/mobile-navigation/tomtom-car-kit-for-iPhone/) which claims to enhance GPS performance with a "built-in GPS receiver" that "enhances the GPS signal, especially in areas where GPS reception is limited i.e. high rises". However you don't need that, you've already got a GPS gadget.

And to be honest you don't "need" the TomTom app either, you can use GoogleMaps or some other mapping application. But that's not going to give you quite the same nice experience as TomTom.