{"id":4797,"date":"2011-01-19T23:51:03","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T23:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=4797"},"modified":"2011-01-19T23:51:03","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T23:51:03","slug":"orange-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=4797","title":{"rendered":"Orange Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the less pleasant experiences of my trip to Glasgow yesterday… Orange Maps.<\/p>\n

Now, I have a Tom Tom sat nav, but I don’t use it very often. It was great playing with it when I first got it, but I quickly realised that I don’t need the darned thing. It was a pain having to keep setting it up, then keep removing it for security purposes, plus charging it and keep docking it to update it.<\/p>\n

And of course, being a bloke means I can find my way anywhere – in the dark, blindfolded, in a coma – without having to ask anyone for directions or use a sat nav in the first place.<\/p>\n

However… trying to find an obscure place like the Old Fruitmarket in a big city like Glasgow is what sat navs were created for… but they’re still a pain to have to lug around as standalone units.<\/p>\n

\"Android\"Since I got my Android phone, though, the possibility of a sat nav in your pocket became highly desirable. So I started using Orange Maps when I needed to find somewhere or navigate to it. It was OK when it worked, but a few months ago – when I needed to get to Manchester avoiding the motorways – it scared the crap out of me by deciding it couldn’t contact the Orange Maps server after it had dumped me in the middle of Chesterfield’s one-way system during the rush hour. Fortunately, it decided about half an hour later that it could <\/em>contact the server after all.<\/p>\n

Learning Point: the last thing you want is your sat nav telling you it’s lost!<\/p>\n

So anyway, last night I’m on the outskirts of Glasgow – Hamilton Services to be exact – and I had to make a phone call. Orange Maps has a habit of terminating when you do that, so you need to tell it again where you want to go. It chose this moment to again refuse to contact the server.<\/p>\n

I can see a connection here: both times, it was during the rush hour, so the phrase ‘server overload’ comes to mind. Well, what bloody use is a sat nav service you can’t use when other people are trying to use it at the same time?<\/p>\n

The problem was that this <\/em>time it just would not connect. Period. So there I am, paying \u00a35 a month for a service which doesn’t work at exactly the time you need to be sure it will, literally abandoned 300 miles from home!<\/p>\n

Thank God for the Internet (and, fortunately, getting out of the various 3G blackspots around Glasgow to be able to access it). I looked at a couple of sat nav options in the Android marketplace. I downloaded one, only to discover the configuration file… “is downloading…this will take approximately 6 hours… no, wait… 8 hours…” Aaargh! No wi-fi and a wobbly 3G! I briefly toyed with the idea of driving around to find an unsecured wireless network, but decided against that.<\/p>\n

I accidentally found GoogleMaps (weird, because I use that all the time at home for finding out where new pupils live, but hadn’t really clicked that they had a sat nav feature on Android phones (well, it is <\/em>beta). And so it was problem solved… GoogleMaps got me there without any glitches at all, and home again later on.<\/p>\n

I cancelled Orange Maps today and won’t be going back. As usual, their customer service was excellent – just a shame that Orange Maps isn’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the less pleasant experiences of my trip to Glasgow yesterday… Orange Maps. Now, I have a Tom Tom sat nav, but I don’t use it very often. It was great playing with it when I first got it, but I quickly realised that I don’t need the darned thing. It was a pain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80,90,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-computer-tech-related","category-general-related"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t