Do we HAVE to always enter City First?

[docsalr]

I have a TomTom One 3rd edition. I was using iguidance on my pocket PC before and think that entering city first is a major annoyance. At many times I don't know which city the address is in and I fail to navigate! Sometimes shopping malls are in bordering cities and this really sucks. Anyway of not entering city first?

Thanks for reading even if you don't know the answer.

 

[46jimbo]

This is the way it has to be done, unfortunately. The most obvious alternatives are entering a zip code, a POI or a point on the map.

 

[zerimar]

...or search for the shopping mall of your choice in the POI.

 

[shed]

I have a TomTom One 3rd edition. I was using iguidance on my pocket PC before and think that entering city first is a major annoyance. At many times I don't know which city the address is in and I fail to navigate! Sometimes shopping malls are in bordering cities and this really sucks. Anyway of not entering city first?

Thanks for reading even if you don't know the answer.

pretty obvious i would have thought that any number of cities in the world will have the same place names, duh!!!!!

 

[docsalr]

Well, cities in North America are quite different as in the UK. When one is travelling one doesn't know if he or she is still in the same city as there are often no signs posted. You know the area but don't know which city the shopping mall is in until you are familiar with that location. If I already know where it is what is the point of using a GPS. I don't think you have ever tried other GPS programs and have no clue as to what I mean. People in North America would easily understand what I mean. UK mapping may be different so it is not that obvious.

 

[46jimbo]

I was reading a review of a Navman which has the ability to let you enter city or street first. I would like to see that on my TomTom.

And I fully agree that you often aren't sure which municipality something is in.

 

[rayd5365]

I have a TomTom One 3rd edition. I was using iguidance on my pocket PC before and think that entering city first is a major annoyance. At many times I don't know which city the address is in and I fail to navigate! Sometimes shopping malls are in bordering cities and this really sucks. Anyway of not entering city first?

Thanks for reading even if you don't know the answer.

I agree that it would be nice to be able to enter the street address first.

I've had an original Go since they first came out(3 1/2 years ago) & just got a new 720. I have also had/have an Acura TL and a Honda Pilot with the factory nav. I LOVE both the TomTom & the Honda/Acura Nav.

One thing that I prefer on the Honda system is that you can enter an address by street(as well as city & other choices). One of the reasons this works is that you pick the state you are in and this setting is sticky/persistent until you change it.

If you enter a street address and that exact street address happens to appear in more than one city of your current state, you are able to select the city you want. Surprisingly, it is not all that common for the excact same street address to appear in more then one city within a single state. For those instances where the same street name appears in more than one county, the address number range is often different so you only see the ones with that house number (i.e. 11354). For really common streets, Main, First, Grant, Etc., you would search by city first rather than street.

This wouldn't work nearly as well if the first parameter in the search weren't the state, because the number of duplicates would be way too high.

I wish TomTom would let you enter a default state for your destinations, it would save having to pick from half a dozen "Portland"s or "Newports" every time you try to go somewhere in Portland Oregon or Newport Beach California. It's even worse now that we don't really have regional maps but just one giant USA/Canada.

 

[docsalr]

My friend has a Garmin Street Pilot and it has the option of searching all the cities. Even has an option for province! Really nice GPS. I wish TomTom gives us a firmware update with these new features.

 

[canderson]

I was reading a review of a Navman which has the ability to let you enter city or street first. I would like to see that on my TomTom.

And I fully agree that you often aren't sure which municipality something is in.

That's got to be an interesting can of worms. I can only imagine the results of entering "Main St."! Gotta be a couple or three of those in each state

hmmm...However, if a unit were confined to displaying the cities within some reasonable (or specified) radius of the current position in which the entered street name occurs .... sounds like a feature being missed by all of them, so far.

 

[porksoda]

That's got to be an interesting can of worms. I can only imagine the results of entering "Main St."! Gotta be a couple or three of those in each state

hmmm...However, if a unit were confined to displaying the cities within some reasonable (or specified) radius of the current position in which the entered street name occurs .... sounds like a feature being missed by all of them, so far.

in garmin when you do search by street name after it has found bunch it will also tell you in brackets which city they are from.

excellent feature.

Tomtom should have that option as a must have in thier new software or via a firmware updat.e

 

[Targonis]

I am guessing that it is on the list of things to work on once NavCore 7 is available for all platforms. Those of you who already have version 7 are lucky since you get all the new features. For those of us with PDAs, we are still stuck with Navigator 6, Tomtom Home 1.5(which does not support the Google Maps integration), and no Map Share, even for those of us who have updated our maps to 675(the latest version available for those with Navigator 6).

It may be the feature will show up in 2008 as well, but as I said, there are "more important" features that will be added before that one.

Since Google Maps DOES work with Home 2.1, if you know you will be going somewhere before you leave, you can use Google Maps on your PC to find where you are going, and then send it to your GPS(it goes to Tomtom Home, which will then send the address to your Tomtom device).

Another solution is that if you know a store that is at that particular place, you can navigate to that POI based on the distance. The downloadable POIs for "retail stores" come in handy for that. It's not as good as having a category for mall and such, but it's a thought for you.

Europe is a different place, and individual towns are more distinct locations, unlike how things are here in the USA where towns just flow together, and the official location/city/town where a given street is may not match the area that street is in(like any street listed under Napeague, NY, which will either be considered Amagansett, or Montauk by most people due to there being no Napeague, NY post office.)

 

[porksoda]

I am guessing that it is on the list of things to work on once NavCore 7 is available for all platforms. Those of you who already have version 7 are lucky since you get all the new features. For those of us with PDAs, we are still stuck with Navigator 6, Tomtom Home 1.5(which does not support the Google Maps integration), and no Map Share, even for those of us who have updated our maps to 675(the latest version available for those with Navigator 6).

It may be the feature will show up in 2008 as well, but as I said, there are "more important" features that will be added before that one.

Since Google Maps DOES work with Home 2.1, if you know you will be going somewhere before you leave, you can use Google Maps on your PC to find where you are going, and then send it to your GPS(it goes to Tomtom Home, which will then send the address to your Tomtom device).

Another solution is that if you know a store that is at that particular place, you can navigate to that POI based on the distance. The downloadable POIs for "retail stores" come in handy for that. It's not as good as having a category for mall and such, but it's a thought for you.

Europe is a different place, and individual towns are more distinct locations, unlike how things are here in the USA where towns just flow together, and the official location/city/town where a given street is may not match the area that street is in(like any street listed under Napeague, NY, which will either be considered Amagansett, or Montauk by most people due to there being no Napeague, NY post office.)

i have the 7 app on my one xl... i still cant search via whole province... i have sent in an email for that feature... as here in canada i do not know when one city ends and one starts... oddly enough in "toronto" where we had differnet boroughs 10-15 years ago.. the whole city is sperated in tomtom like that... which is silly as i dont know where one borough starts and one ends.. one time i spent 15 mins looking for an address on the side of a highway... felt like a dolt...

 

[hitophikers]

TomTom vs other PND's

Not long after I bought my TT510 a year or so ago, I became aware of a major flaw in the input screens for an unknown location much to my dismay. I needed to find an address but being in a rural area, I was unsure of the "city" in which it would be found but the street name was probably very unique. After many failed attempts to find the right "city" (which ended up being a rural fire district), I gave up and called my destination for directions. Once there, the TT told me where I was. This really defeats the need for a PND doesn't it? This was before my Toyota (below) came on scene.

I contacted TT and was told that it was impossible to search on an address first then choose from a list of cities. I believe that TT is the only PND that does not offer the street >> state >> city input as well as city >> state >> street choice. My Toyota nav (even though it's far inferior to any PND for point to point driving directions) allows street >> city input. Ironically, I have to use the Toyota nav to get the city in order to use in my TT more often than I should.

Finally, I have recommended to my friends that they look at all PND's and decide which is best for them. I note the street >> state >> city vs city >> state >> street input so they will be aware of the current TT limitations. Living in a mostly rural area, they typically choose other than TT and seem to be happy.

Being a lemming is not necessarially a good thing.

 

[Schintzel]

I am guessing that it is on the list of things to work on once NavCore 7 is available for all platforms. Those of you who already have version 7 are lucky since you get all the new features. For those of us with PDAs, we are still stuck with Navigator 6, Tomtom Home 1.5(which does not support the Google Maps integration), and no Map Share, even for those of us who have updated our maps to 675(the latest version available for those with Navigator 6).

Same deal for Rider owners. TT says v7 may be available in April.

 

[JVRaschi]

Not long after I bought my TT510 a year or so ago, I became aware of a major flaw in the input screens for an unknown location much to my dismay. I needed to find an address but being in a rural area, I was unsure of the "city" in which it would be found but the street name was probably very unique. ...

You can try using the find by zip code feature. Since zip codes cover much larger areas in rural parts of the country, you can try typing the first 3 or 4 numbers of the zip code of a near town (or current location). It should list all the zip codes and city names. You might have an easier time finding the name of the city for your destination this way

 

[hitophikers]

Zip Code search

Zip Code search sounds good, but not realistic when already on the road. Most folks do well to remember their own Zip, let alone some place they have never been that usually doesn't have a letterhead or business card. Even though I keep a local phone book in the car, names don't have Zips listed with them.

At home, I've used an online map service to find a location I need to be at and then put that information (approximate) in the TT to get me in the area. My question still is WHY must I take all these extra steps to use a TT?

 

[akm1313]

I wonder if they have fixed this highly annoying dealbreaker in the x30 series!

... I sold my tomtom 720 in favour of a garmin 360 for this very reason... and its painful.

Garmin is very functional but not practical, they dont even have qwerty keyboards or increase volume at faster speed nor an ETA time!!!! its a POS but at least I can find my addresses until Tomtom fix this issue.

 

[41south]

This "feature" is going to cause me to ditch my One XL in favor of the Navman S50. I sure wish there was some way around it, but here in New Zealand The TT is almost useless without a search by street first. It's a shame because TT do so many other things way better than Navman

 

[Larry L]

I have the new US & Canada map 7.15. You now select the state for navigation and PIO selection. This helps reduce the number of Washington Townships to seach through.

You do not need to input the state every time, but the option to change the state is presented. It defaults to the last chosen state.

 

[Robm]

It would be great if the TT had Voice command control, that woud be something