Page 54 of 55 « First 445253 54 55
Reply
Thread Tools
lma is offline lma
2011-07-16 , 10:30
Posts: 2,802 | Thanked: 4,491 times | Joined on Nov 2007
#531
Originally Posted by Jaffa View Post
Yes, Ovi Maps - on the pre-release image on the N950 - isn't an adequate replacement, even with its custom "Drive" app
How's the GPS side? Do we know what chip it's using? Does it establish a fix reasonably quickly? When offline (including cell radio off)? Does it cache anything or is it always a cold fix?

So as long as the N810 is going, and the Wayfinder licence hasn't expired, I'll be continuing to use it as my main GPS. I'm not convinced my next phone (an N9) will be able to replace it and may have to buy a custom GPS.
I have a paid licence, but i still find wayfinder almost unusable. My original (older than even the 770!) TomTom GO runs rings around it in every way. Sygic on the N900 was also pretty good and quite cheap too.
 
Jaffa's Avatar
Jaffa is offline Jaffa
2011-07-16 , 11:02
Posts: 2,535 | Thanked: 6,681 times | Joined on Mar 2008 @ UK
#532
Originally Posted by lma View Post
How's the GPS side? Do we know what chip it's using? Does it establish a fix reasonably quickly? When offline (including cell radio off)? Does it cache anything or is it always a cold fix?
Fix is quick with a connection, no idea about the chip.

I last had a fix about 22 hours ago. I've gone into flight mode and launched Maps. Inside, but against a window, it's taken been going for 8 minutes and not got a fix yet.

Exited flight mode & restarted Maps and it had a fix within 30 seconds. The big test is when it's got a cell connection but no data. I'll be able to test that in France in a few weeks.

I have a paid licence, but i still find wayfinder almost unusable. My original (older than even the 770!) TomTom GO runs rings around it in every way. Sygic on the N900 was also pretty good and quite cheap too.
What're the problems you have with Wayfinder? (OK, some of the maps in France I've found are woefully inaccurate [roads which don't exist, roads which aren't built yet] compared with the UK).
__________________
Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org
 

The Following User Says Thank You to Jaffa For This Useful Post:
lma is offline lma
2011-07-16 , 11:39
Posts: 2,802 | Thanked: 4,491 times | Joined on Nov 2007
#533
Originally Posted by Jaffa View Post
Inside, but against a window, it's taken been going for 8 minutes and not got a fix yet.
I was going to say that current UK weather might be a bit sub-optimal for testing that, but I plugged in the GO (the battery was flat) just to check and it got a cold fix in under a minute.

The N810 took about 12', even with the benefit of AGPS.

What're the problems you have with Wayfinder?
Mainly performance. Though it's not as bad as in its Navicore on the 770 incarnation (which tended to make the machine busy enough to trigger watchdog reboots), I often found the display lagging seconds behind actual position, spoken directions arriving too late etc. The other annoyance is the UI (this it the one app category that absolutely MUST be one-handed use/finger-friendly optimised and responsive as your life may depend on it).

Map inaccuracy issues are a fact of life everywhere sadly, but I think the wayfinder maps are pretty good considering their age.
 

The Following User Says Thank You to lma For This Useful Post:
gazza_d is offline gazza_d
2011-07-16 , 11:59
Posts: 961 | Thanked: 565 times | Joined on Jul 2007 @ Tyneside, North East England
#534
Originally Posted by Jaffa View Post
Yes, Ovi Maps - on the pre-release image on the N950 - isn't an adequate replacement, even with its custom "Drive" app:
  • Colours are grey and light grey on a white background. Not very visible.
  • No favourites in Drive.
  • No longitude/latitude destination.
  • No ETA.
  • No speed camera warnings.
  • Some searches still seem to go online. Haven't fully tested offline use yet.
  • No waypoints.

So as long as the N810 is going, and the Wayfinder licence hasn't expired, I'll be continuing to use it as my main GPS. I'm not convinced my next phone (an N9) will be able to replace it and may have to buy a custom GPS.
slightly off topic here, but i do still have the same fondness for my N810 and wayfinder even though my licence is now dead, which kinda irriates me, as i paid good money and it's now abandonware with wayfinder being closed.

Do you ever get the feeling that everything is going backwards though.. it sounds like the harmattan maps app is even more braindead than even N900 ovi maps, which was worse than sygic which was still worse and more unreliable than wayfinder ever was.
__________________
______________________________

Nokia 770 (2gb) since Aug 2007
Nokia N800 (32gb) since Dec 2007
Nokia N810 (16gb) since Sep 2009
Nokia N900 (64gb) since Aug 2010 ______________________________
 
sjgadsby is offline sjgadsby
2011-07-16 , 14:31
Posts: 5,335 | Thanked: 8,187 times | Joined on Mar 2007 @ Pennsylvania, USA
#535
Originally Posted by gazza_d View Post
Do you ever get the feeling that everything is going backwards though.. it sounds like the harmattan maps app is even more braindead than even N900 ovi maps, which was worse than sygic which was still worse and more unreliable than wayfinder ever was.
For me, Wayfinder was unusable for anything more than a display of my current position. Maemo 5's Ovi Maps was a wonderful upgrade, being that it's actually usable for finding a route, and Sygic was another step forward.

Wayfinder could only find addresses if given a Zip code, not the town from a mailing address, and no one provides a Zip code when inviting you over or providing their business location. So, the only way to use Wayfinder was to first look the destination address up in Google Maps to find a Zip code. That required a data connection and too much time and hassle.

Ovi Maps and Sygic can find addresses by postal address town, making them at least usable. The actual maps in Ovi Maps seem quite out of date, and Sygic suffers from a horrendous UI, but they manage one of the most basic tasks of a GPS application: allowing the entry of a destination address.
__________________
maemo.org profile
 
lma is offline lma
2011-07-16 , 17:12
Posts: 2,802 | Thanked: 4,491 times | Joined on Nov 2007
#536
Originally Posted by sjgadsby View Post
Wayfinder could only find addresses if given a Zip code, not the town from a mailing address
I can't believe I'm defending it, but this may be a data problem. It can certainly find UK street addresses.

So, the only way to use Wayfinder was to first look the destination address up in Google Maps to find a Zip code. That required a data connection and too much time and hassle.

Ovi Maps and Sygic can find addresses by postal address town, making them at least usable.
Doesn't Ovi Maps still require a data connection to find anything?
 
gazza_d is offline gazza_d
2011-07-16 , 18:19
Posts: 961 | Thanked: 565 times | Joined on Jul 2007 @ Tyneside, North East England
#537
sygic, ovi maps, and wayfinder all have offline maps, whivh is great.
ovi needs a connection to perform a search though, althpugh the online search is good - also does not let you save any POIs or favorites either, the only way is to create a contact with an address which is bizarre, and a bigger ommision than the lack of turn by turn.
wayfinder does have full address searching including street name. it then allows to save the found address as a favorite for navigation too later.

both ovi maps and sygic have abysmal user interfaces, wayfinder's wasnt great but was/is the least terrible. Oh and sygic has less than stellar stability.

this wasn't supposed to turn into a comparison review, but more a lament about the dumbing down and simplification of these programs to the point where useful functionality is dumped to make the ui as simple and as pretty as possible.
__________________
______________________________

Nokia 770 (2gb) since Aug 2007
Nokia N800 (32gb) since Dec 2007
Nokia N810 (16gb) since Sep 2009
Nokia N900 (64gb) since Aug 2010 ______________________________
 
burmashave is offline burmashave
2011-07-16 , 19:37
Posts: 86 | Thanked: 24 times | Joined on Jan 2008
#538
I know that I shouldn't want to use Wayfinder because according to some in this thread, it isn't very good, and besides, there are a vast number of better alternatives out there that would meet my needs because my needs are exactly like those of the folks making these useful suggestions.

Can we please leave this thread to folks who'd like to resurrect Wayfinder? We'll agree that we are stupid/crazy/short sighted, whatever. Unless that is, the anti-wayfinder folks would actually like to consider user requirements other than their own. For example, to get a decent GPS system that I can use on my motorcycle, I'm looking at $600 for something that will not do the job as well as the N810 I already have.

Mebbe these folks would like to point out all the inexpensive GPS devices out there that have the same size screen and resolution, touch screen, removable battery and an extremely thin form factor.



That said, I've hinted at a potential solution; however, I have not heard from any devs. We know how to spoof a MAC address, why not spoof the satellite time data provided to Wayfinder. It seems that if we could subtract 3 years from all of the satellite data, Wayfinder would continue to work, provided that the system time was manually or automatically altered as well.
 
Jaffa's Avatar
Jaffa is offline Jaffa
2011-07-16 , 19:48
Posts: 2,535 | Thanked: 6,681 times | Joined on Mar 2008 @ UK
#539
Originally Posted by burmashave View Post
That said, I've hinted at a potential solution; however, I have not heard from any devs. We know how to spoof a MAC address, why not spoof the satellite time data provided to Wayfinder. It seems that if we could subtract 3 years from all of the satellite data, Wayfinder would continue to work, provided that the system time was manually or automatically altered as well.
A better alternative is just to reverse engineer the binary and hardcode the condition which decides whether or not the user is licenced.

In initial versions this was trivial (it took me an hour or so to find) and meant changing a single 32-bit word (i.e. 4 bytes/1 instruction) in the binary. Later versions seem to have some kind of self-referential check which made this much harder the last time I looked at it; but by then licences were cheap and affordable.

Mine doesn't run out until October 2011, if the mapping solution on my primary device at that point (probably an N9) doesn't meet my requirements I'll have two options:
  • Reinvestigate cracking Wayfinder.
  • Buy a standalone unit like the Garmin 1340

If anyone wanted to properly get started on the first one, there are reverse engineering tools for ARM which work on lots of platforms, complete with visual segregation of functions and code paths.
__________________
Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org
 

The Following User Says Thank You to Jaffa For This Useful Post:
Jaffa's Avatar
Jaffa is offline Jaffa
2011-07-16 , 20:05
Posts: 2,535 | Thanked: 6,681 times | Joined on Mar 2008 @ UK
#540
PS, low-level ARM code analysis and workarounds sounds like the kind of thing to get jonwil on-board with.
__________________
Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org
 
Reply
Page 54 of 55 « First 445253 54 55

Tags
customers?, middlefinger

« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 07:49.

Contact Us - Home - Archive - Top