[Wikimedia-l] TomTom does a Britannica

[Anthony]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 8:27 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 29 May 2012 13:08, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>> The difference is that Wikipedia is usable in the real world, whereas
>> OSM, for the most part, is not.
>> Yes, TomTom is dying.  But it's because of Google, not because of OSM.
>
>
> I'd actually flag smartphones as the culprit. They're the good-enough
> cheap alternative that's disrupting the satnav business. TomTom's
> article is actually about an Android app that uses OSM data.

Well, yeah.  Smartphones were what allowed Google to create its free
satnav app.  And it's hard to compete with free.

And yeah, there are apps that use OSM data.  And there will probably
be more now that OSM has abandoned copyleft for data.  But most of
them won't be free, let alone libre, so it's hard to consider them
part of OSM.  If there's a usable free satnav app based on OSM data,
I'd certainly like to see it.

> Heck, my Blackberry doesn't have a GPS, but I can navigate usably with
> the Vodafone app that just triangulates off the cell towers.
> Resolution is terrible (on the order of 100-200 metres), but it turns
> out to be mostly sufficient.

I guess we have a different notion of "usable" :).

And yes, I'm talking about for driving navigation, which is TomTom's
main market.  Although, while OSM shines in some places in terms of
walking navigation, it is woefully inadequate in others.