On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Aniello Del Sorbo <ani...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2009/3/19 Mark <wolfm...@gmail.com>: >> On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 7:12 AM, Matan Ziv-Av <ma...@svgalib.org> wrote: >>> On Wed, 18 Mar 2009, John Holmblad wrote: >>> >>>> All, >>>> >>>> here is another app that would be nice to have on the IT: >>>> >>>> http://www.google.com/mobile/default/maps.html# >>>> >>>> At the end of that www page they put in the following teaser: >>>> >>>>> Of course, if you have an iPhone, iPod touch, or Android device, >>>>> you’ll already be familiar with Google Maps right there on your >>>>> home screen. >>>>> >>> >>> >>> What does Google Maps application do that maemo-mapper does not? >>> >> >> Routing. Maemo-mapper requires you to be online and gets directions >> from - can you say: "Google Maps"?....... (Not that I've been able to >> get that to work in Maemo Mapper.) >> > > Google Maps also requires you to be online for maps and routing, doesn't it? > I still don't see what Google Maps does more than Maemo Mapper. >
Google Maps *does* routing. Maemo Mapper *doesn't*. Maemo Mapper *tries* to use Google Maps for routing, but it doesn't work, at least not well or reliably. Google Maps is online in the first place. Maemo Mapper is essentially an offline application, so requiring you to be online to do routing - or even more importantly to download maps for an area you didn't foresee needing in an area where there is no cellular coverage, much less Wi-Fi - is less than optimal. Ultimately, anything GPS-enabled that requires you to have Internet access for critical functionality is severely crippled. As long as Maemo Mapper relies solely on bitmaps, there's really no possibility of it ever doing native routing. That's one very big strike against it. Ultimately, vector data is the only efficient way to do street maps. It enables all kinds of things that are not possible using bitmaps, and requires *much* less storage space. Satellite images are nice as overlays, but - especially for the regular street maps - having to store multiple images for the exact same data at different zoom levels is insane. > The only thing I can think of is shop search, but that is not in the > todo list of Maemo Mapper, probably. > > -- > anidel > You're really comparing apples to oranges. Not only are you comparing an online application to an offline one, you're also comparing an app that has the full potential of Google with one that never can on its own. Sure, it can interface with Google to get the most of the same functionality, but why would anybody use a limited third-party app when going straight to the source is easier, faster, more efficient, more powerful and just as free? If you want to make a more reasonable comparison, you need to compare any IT mapping application with any standalone GPSr. After all, the tablet is basically the same form factor and has far more functionality built in. As yet, there's no IT mapping app that comes anywhere near the features, ease of use or practicality of a standalone GPSr. Mark _______________________________________________ maemo-users mailing list maemo-users@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users
