New TomToms

[canderson]

Some of the N.A. return numbers no doubt come from outfits like Costco that tend to have a 'no questions asked' return policy. I know that among consumer electronics companies, this drives the camera companies nuts. People purchase for a vacation and then return a perfectly good unit to the store.

Still, one wonders about any other reasons. I do note that UK buyers are not bashful about returning units that do not seem to operate to the specs on the box, but perhaps here we're just less willing to put up with sloppiness on the part of the manufacturer?

 

[Andy_P]

Everything I've heard is pointing to a repeat of the go1000 launch. Rush to market in Europe without everything fully built and stable, then more features and bugfixes coming in subsequent software releases.

My memory must be failing me.... Can you remind me what actual FEATURES were added to the Go1000 series after launch?

 

[canderson]

The early 1000 units didn't even have custom POI support. Déjà vu!

No latest map guarantee functionality from server + MyTT.
No custom POI.
No speed cam updates.
No itinerary - even as Via points, as I recall.

 

[mvl]

also they had no mapshare, expedia, tripadvisor, twitter, custom voices/caricons/splashscreens, quickgpsfix, and probably more I'm forgetting.

 

[dhn]

But didn't the original units have Google search? eep:

 

[mvl]

Yup, that's one big takeaway too. Then again, google had a 25 mile search radius so it was of limited use in my view.

The Google search integration with Tomtom for Android is much much better.

 

[canderson]

"Integration", or just taking advantage of 'intents'?

 

[mvl]

Intents only. Integration could be improved, but intent integration is still better than a pnd.

 

[canderson]

It certainly is if we're talking about (ugh) "Local Search"!

 

[offthegrid]

AT&T takes another chunk of 2G/3G and moves it to LTE.

http://gigaom.com/2013/11/07/att-begins-cannibalizing-its-2g-and-3g-networks-to-boost-lte-capacity/

AT&T actually revealed its plans to cannibalize — or as they say in industry speak, refarm — portions of its networks for LTE in an August FCC filing related to Ma Bell’s planned acquisition of Leap Wireless. AT&T SVP of Network Planning and Engineering William Hogg wrote that AT&T was in the process of deploying LTE in PCS and would launch the service commercially in Baltimore, Dallas, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., by the end of this year.

But AT&T began laying the groundwork for this move well over a year ago. In March of 2012, AT&T started culling all 2G-only PCS phones from its New York networks in order to make way for a shutdown of GSM in the PCS band. At the time, AT&T said it would repurpose that GSM spectrum for its 3G and 4G networks, which was a bit confusing since AT&T calls its HSPA+ service 4G. But it’s now obvious it had LTE intentions for the band as well.

In September of 2012, FCC documentation revealed two hidden bands on AT&T’s version of the iPhone 5 that didn’t appear in Apple’s official spec sheet: PCS and cellular. At the time, no GSM operator had plans to deploy LTE in either band. Apple included them probably because AT&T asked it to.