TomTom GPS for iPhone

TomTom's entry into the iPhone GPS market has undoubtedly been the most anticipated of the route-guidance applications. From the time the company announced it had plans for such an app — long before Apple actually deigned to give permission for such apps to exist — to the demonstration of the App at WWDC '09, it's been given a pretty lengthy hype cycle. Which is odd, because TomTom's a very well known GPS brand in the actual GPS device space, and one with a generally loyal and happy following. TomTom GPS systems are amongst the best of breed in the "real" GPS world. So how does its iPhone app fare? Like other GPS apps, TomTom struggles with a couple of challenges that aren't entirely avoidable. First, there's the size of the install, which weighs in at 157MB. That's actually smaller than either Navigon (218MB) or Sygic MobileMaps (204MB), but for Australian audiences, it's still a hefty chunk of your download allowance. That download gets you an App labelled just as "Australia", which is irksome if you're searching for a navigation app from the iPhone interface. Even if you remember it's just called "Australia", there's the danger of accidentally buying the Baz Lurhmann movie by mistake. Compared to the icon-centric Sygic interface or the stripped-down four-button Navigon interface, TomTom's interface seems rather busy — largely because it is. It'll first up drop you into the map and try to get a signal lock, and like other iPhone GPS apps this can be a bit slow. A tap anywhere on the screen brings up the scrolling options list, headed with "Navigate To..." and followed by options for sound muting, advanced planning and all up eleven different options. One of those options is for the yet-to-be-released TomTom iPhone Car kit, which will include a car cradle, charging cable and some kind of improved GPS chip for boosting the signal. With that much equipment — and the fact that a brand-name car mount will cost you something like $40 — we can't see it being cheap. For the moment though, choosing that option just brings you to a "coming soon" splash page. TomTom's map interfaces have always tended towards the functional and chunky, with the view that you should only need to glance at them for a second before getting your eyes firmly focused on the road. This leads to maps that aren't as detailed as the competition's, but arguably a bit safer; you're more likely to just check that that you're on the right track than stop and ponder your time to arrival or average speed readings. As with most GPS applications, I hit some excellent advice while driving with TomTom, and some advice that was less than stellar. You still can't remove your brain from the driving equation, and it's not always aware of some road turn rules. TomTom sources its map information from Sensis — similar to Sygic's MobileMaps — although you don't get the New Zealand maps for free; adding those maps will set you back an additional $114.99.